Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — SOCIAL SECURITY

The Secretary of State was asked—

Welfare Reform

Mr. Paul Clark: What recent representations he has received over his proposals for welfare reform. [63182]

The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling): We have received numerous representations on our recent proposals for reform towards our central aim of work for those who can and security for those who cannot.

Mr. Clark: I thank my right hon. Friend for that response. I draw his attention to the issue of security in retirement years. My constituents' main concern is that they have sufficient pension rights for a secure retirement. Thirty thousand of my constituents in Gillingham and the Medway towns are aged over 65 and living on means-tested benefits to help to supplement their income.

What proposals does my right hon. Friend have to ensure that future pensioners will not have to rely on means-tested benefits for security in their later years?

Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend is right: one of the scandals that we inherited is that many pensioners are living on such low incomes that they depend on income support and other benefits. Part of the rationale behind my proposals for reforming pensions, which I announced to the House on 15 December last year, is to ensure that people who work throughout their life will make a worthwhile saving towards their pension. The result of my proposals—particularly for those who earn £9,000 a year or less, for whom we have doubled the rate at which their pension will accrue—is that people who work throughout their life will retire on an income sufficient to raise them above benefit levels, a laudable aim which should have been achieved years ago.

Sir Sydney Chapman: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that, under his proposals for a minimum pension guarantee, those who suffer will be people who prudently save, because they will receive nothing from welfare, whereas those who spend everything will receive the maximum amount from the state? Does he think that it is fair for that to continue?

Mr. Darling: The hon. Gentleman is on to a good point. If he read the pension proposals that I made at the end of last year, he would know that the Government are considering how we can improve that situation. Before Conservative Members get too excited, I point out that, for 20 to 30 years, people who have a small amount of money in the bank or a comparatively small occupational pension have discovered that they are not eligible to receive the help to which others are entitled.
We have made it clear that we are prepared to consider measures to ensure that the minimum pension guarantee will be available to more people. We shall do so by examining what disregards might be appropriate for capital and income. The hon. Gentleman is right to


mention the problem. It has existed for many years, but the Government are considering it and are prepared to tackle it.

Mr. Frank Field: My question is about the representations that my right hon. Friend has received—and more than 1,000 people have responded to the various Green Papers. Does he recall that his colleagues have given answers stating that those representations generally support the Government's objectives for welfare reform? Is he aware that many of those submissions also make substantial points of criticism? If we are to have a proper debate, should not the Government respond properly and publish a Green Paper on those criticisms and worries and on how they intend to counter them?

Mr. Darling: I agree with my right hon. Friend that the Government should respond to criticism—they will—but I am wary of undertaking to publish Green Paper after Green Paper. The Government are anxious to ensure that we make progress and implement the reforms that people want. The consultation period for the pensions Green Paper, which is a matter very close to my right hon. Friend, finishes at the end of March. The Government will consider the representations that we receive and decide whether we need to publish a White Paper or whether we can proceed to legislation.
On disability and bereavement benefits, I have made it clear that the Government want to legislate in this Session. The consultation periods on those benefits have just ended or will end this week. In each case, the Government will respond to all suggestions and criticisms and make it clear what representations we can and cannot accept, but I can assure my right hon. Friend that the consultation is genuine and helps to inform Government decisions.

Mr. Archy Kirkwood: On 15 December, the Secretary of State said in his statement on pensions that, under the new Labour Government, Britain's pensioners were at least £140 a year better off. How is that increase made up?

Mr. Darling: I was explaining that, as a result of the Government reducing VAT on fuel, introducing winter fuel payments—which are now being made—and making changes to the fuel levy, pensioners are better off by £140 a year. The Government made a commitment to current and future pensioners, and we are fulfilling that commitment.

Lone Parents

Dr. Brian Iddon: What plans he has for the training made available to lone parents. [63183]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): The new deal for lone parents is the first attempt that any Government have made to help lone parents to join the labour market. We recognise that training can play a key part, especially for those who have never been in work or who have been away from the labour market for a long time. That is why lone parents have immediate access

to Government-sponsored training courses through the Employment Service, training and enterprise councils or further education colleges.

Dr. Iddon: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. We have had joined-up thinking and joined-up talking, but the new deal executive board in Bolton would like joined-up action. By that, I mean that if we are to encourage lone parents to take advantage of the training opportunities, child care facilities need to be in place sooner rather than later. Will my hon. Friend comment on that?

Angela Eagle: My hon. Friend is right, but he must also recognise that, when one is starting from a standing position, it takes time to set up the national child care strategy, valued at £455 million, which will be coming on stream. Lone parents are already taking up the opportunities that the new deal is offering.

Miss Anne McIntosh: At the last Social Security Question Time, the Secretary of State said that there would be an element of compulsion in the scheme. I subsequently had some correspondence from Baroness Hollis, who said that there will be no compulsion. If the scheme is to work, there must be an element of compulsion. Are the Government saying one thing to this House and something else to the other place?

Angela Eagle: No, I assure the hon. Lady that we certainly are not saying one thing to another place and something else to this Chamber. I think that she is mixing up the new deal for lone parents, which I emphasise is not compulsory, with policy work on the formation of the single gateway. As the hon. Lady and the House will know, pilot schemes will be established in July this year to set up a single gateway into the benefits system, and under those schemes an interview before one applies for benefits will be compulsory.

Mr. Eric Pickles: Will the hon. Lady therefore tell us what the sanctions will be in respect of the compulsory element? Will there be a withdrawal of benefits, a withdrawal of benefits for a time, or a stiff note from the Secretary of State? Is The Sunday Times accurate in reporting that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Education and Employment are keen that the compulsory element should not only apply to the initial interview, but extend to the subsequent interviews?

Angela Eagle: A Bill will be put before the House, the details of which can be considered, especially in Committee. However, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that attendance at an interview will be a condition for receiving benefit in the single gateway pilot areas.

Benefit Reviews

Mr. David Heath: If he will make a statement on the processes by which an individual is randomly selected for targeted review by the Benefits Agency. [63184]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): Targeted reviews are made on claims to income support and income-based


jobseeker's allowance. Cases are not randomly selected. The national criteria are designed to identify claims where there is a high risk of the benefit in payment being incorrect.

Mr. Heath: I am most grateful to the Minister for that reply. A constituent who is grievously ill and living in very difficult circumstances has been checked in respect of various benefits five times a year since 1993. I fully accept the need continually to review people in receipt of benefits where there are reasonable grounds for suspicion of abuse, but can it be right that an individual is randomly selected or targeted with such frequency when no adverse findings have been made?

Angela Eagle: I think that I am aware of the case to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but I certainly do not wish to discuss it across the Floor of the House. The best thing would be for the hon. Gentleman to contact me so that we can discuss the case in detail. It is highly unusual for someone to be checked so many times every year for that number of years. That is not meant to happen. There is meant to be no more than one check a year for each benefit received. Targeted reviews are intended to check incorrect applications of income support; the all-work test would apply to another benefit and so on, down the benefits system. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman's constituent has fallen foul of some of those tests. If the hon. Gentleman contacts me, we can discuss the matter in detail in a more private place.

Mr. Eric Forth: Can the Minister confirm that the Benefits Agency security investigation service currently has enough money to discharge its duties? Will she comment on whether it is likely to achieve its targets this year?

Angela Eagle: The right hon. Gentleman will know that we are doing a lot of work to put in place a comprehensive new framework to ensure that fraud is minimised, and that we are well aware of the importance of that framework. I can confirm to the right hon. Gentleman that we believe that all the fraud investigation work, part of which he mentioned in his question, is properly resourced.

Mr. Iain Duncan Smith: The Minister, in answering that question, should bear in mind the National Audit Office report last week, which said that, basically, the Government have made no impact on benefit fraud. More important, in answering the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), the Minister did not say whether the Benefits Agency security investigation service was properly resourced and would achieve its targets. Will she answer that question now?

Angela Eagle: The targets have been set and we hope that the service will achieve them; otherwise, they would not have been set. However, I am certainly not going to bandy about speculation as to what will happen in future. We are confident that the service will be able to meet those targets. I might add that we take the National Audit Office report very seriously indeed, but the hon. Gentleman needs to be aware that it involves the year

1997–98, during which we inherited Tory policies on all these things. I ask him to look at what we do with fraud in the years ahead.

Mr. Duncan Smith: The Minister will bear it in mind that the Government's response to that report was to say that things can only get better. Let me put that previous question another way: will the Minister now guarantee that the Benefits Agency security investigation service will have enough money to achieve the targets set this financial year?

Angela Eagle: What I am saying to the hon. Gentleman is that we are resourcing fraud and all the many and comprehensive strategies—[HON. MEMBERS: "Resourcing fraud?"] We are adequately resourcing the fraud prevention strategies which we are now putting in place. We expect targets to be met. For example, just before Christmas we announced an extra £100 million for the verification project, which will enable all local authorities to do far more extensive checking on housing benefit and other benefit applications than ever before. The hon. Gentleman should wait and see what happens when we have been in government, so that we can get away from the inherited Tory legacy and start talking—[HON. MEMBERS: "You are in government."] We are in government, yes; but Conservative Members who pose about fraud need to reflect on the fact that the NAO report is a year in arrears, so that it covers some time when the Tories were in power.

Retired People

Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: What further measures are proposed to increase services and disposable income for retired people. [63185]

The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling): Through our Government strategy for older people, we are co-ordinating a number of cross-Government initiatives to ensure that the needs of older people are better understood and that their quality of life is improved. A consultation paper, "Building a Better Britain for Older People", was published on 23 November 1998. The paper sets out what has already been achieved and, above all, what needs to be done.

Mr. Mackinlay: I acknowledge the initiatives taken by the Minister, and his Green Paper proposals, of which most hon. Members in the Chamber will be beneficiaries. I ask the Minister to agree that there is an immediate problem regarding the income of existing pensioners. Bearing in mind the appallingly low take-up of some income-related benefits, and bearing in mind the fact that the minimum income guarantee will depend on people getting income support, what will he do to spend energies comparable with those spent on combating fraud, on encouraging people to take up their entitlement, to ensure that they have an adequate income? Will he comment on Age Concern's report, which says that a modest but adequate income for retired people would be about £150 a week, and that only a quarter of pensioners are anywhere near that figure?

Mr. Darling: On the latter point, the whole point of the Government's long-term strategy is to ensure that as


many people as possible retire on an adequate pension. That is the rationale that underpins our approach, which is set out in the Green Paper published on 15 December 1998.
My hon. Friend is quite right. We have inherited a situation where far too many pensioners are living on a low income. We reckon that between 400,000 and 700,000 pensioners who might be eligible for income support or other benefits are not claiming. My hon. Friend knows that, last year, we ran a pilot project in nine areas to find out why those people were not claiming. We visited them; we telephoned them; we wrote to them—

Mr. Mackinlay: What is the answer? [Interruption.]

Mr. Darling: The answer is not a laughing matter. Many such people are living in very difficult conditions. It is clear that some who did not know that they were entitled to benefits are now receiving them. Others, for reasons that are not at all clear, are eligible for benefits but will not claim. We do not know whether that is because they do not want to claim or because they receive other family support.
My hon. Friend asked me what action the Government will take on entitlement commensurate with that on fraud. We are planning to mount a take-up campaign later this year to encourage people to claim the benefits to which they are entitled. Take-up and fraud are equally important because every penny that is taken from the social security system through fraud is not available to those who genuinely need help.

Mr. Steve Webb: The Secretary of State has pledged in the long term to link the so-called income guarantee to earnings rather than prices. Does he accept that, with two thirds of recipients already over the age of 75, the long term is a difficult concept? Will he therefore pledge to link the income guarantee to earnings at the earliest possible opportunity?

Mr. Darling: The hon. Gentleman will recall that we said in the Green Paper that it was our intention to increase the minimum pension guarantee by linking it with earnings, consistent with prudent management of the economy. He will be aware that we have increased the money available under the present minimum pension guarantee so that the poorest pensioners receive the maximum possible help—£75 for a single person or £116.60 for a married couple. We are doing a great deal to help pensioners. On top of that, for the first time many pensioners are this winter receiving the winter fuel payment. The hon. Gentleman can shrug his shoulders at that, but it is real help going into the hands of every pensioner household—something that never happened under the previous Government. I understand the hon. Gentleman's reticence, because Liberal Democrats—at least down here in London—seemed to be against such a policy. I can tell him, however, that Liberal Democrats north of the border seemed to be in favour of it.

Mr. Peter L. Pike: Although my right hon. Friend is rightly making pledges on the future of the basic pension, the second pension will be increasingly important in the next century. Will he guarantee that scandals such as that in the Bellings pension fund, from which a great deal of money was swindled seven years

ago—many people affected still do not know what they will receive—will not be repeated in the next century, when people will be dependent on what they have paid for, and should receive it?

Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend raises an important point. Over the past few years there have been several pension scandals. It is particularly galling for employees to pay into a fund and then discover, for one reason or another, that the money is not available. There is legislation on the matter on the statute book. If it needs to be changed or strengthened, the Government will address the problem.

Mr. Howard Flight: The Secretary of State referred to reductions in fraud. Will he confirm that the Government have not in any way backed down from their pledge to investigate, to the fullest extent, housing benefit fraud? What initiatives are the Government taking in pursuing the curbing of housing benefit fraud?

Mr. Darling: On housing benefit fraud, which is not the subject of the question, but which, if Madam Speaker will allow me, I shall address—

Madam Speaker: Order. I should not have allowed the question to be asked.

Mr. Darling: The Government announced just before Christmas an initiative to invest about £100 million in ensuring that local authorities that administer the payment of housing benefit make far better and more efficient checks. The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight) is right to say that housing benefit is prone to fraud; it has been for many years. We decided at an early stage to take action to cut such fraud by better checking of data. Local authorities are now able to check someone's entitlement with the Benefits Agency. We want better evidence before we pay housing benefit. The Government recently introduced another initiative whereby the Post Office will not redirect housing benefit cheques. That will prevent people from claiming housing benefit for one address while living somewhere else.
I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the Government are taking action across the board on housing benefit and, indeed, on fraud generally. We are already beginning to see results. One of the reasons why the growth of social security spending in this Parliament is less than half that of the previous Parliament is that we are taking such initiatives to ensure that accurate payments are made and fraud is cut.

Benefit Integrity Project

Mr. David Rendel: When the benefit integrity project will be abolished. [63188]

Mr. Andrew Dismore: If he will make a statement about the future of the benefit integrity project. [63201]

The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Stephen Timms): The benefit integrity project will be replaced by a new system of review which will be sensitive to people's circumstances and fair, as it will


provide for awards to be increased as well as decreased in line with entitlement. We shall introduce the new system as soon as possible and expect to have it in place by April at the latest. Our priority is not to rush the change, but rather to ensure through consultation, in particular with the disability benefits forum, that the new system operates successfully.

Mr. Rendel: May I be the first to congratulate the Minister on his promotion to his new position? We welcomed the news that the benefit integrity project was to be cancelled, but surely it is unnecessary to wait until the new system is in place. The Secretary of State said in his original announcement that the project had been a failure and that it had caused great anxiety to disabled people, so should it not go straight away? The benefit integrity project should be cancelled today.

Mr. Timms: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his congratulations. We shall end the benefit integrity project as soon as we have a replacement that is acceptable. The Social Security Committee, which is chaired by the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood), has done some excellent work on the subject and has suggested—rightly, in my view—that the Department should be much more active in reviewing the benefit once it is awarded. It would therefore be a backward step if, as the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) suggests, we were to end all checking for a period and go back to the position that prevailed before last April, when nothing was checked at all.
We want to continue checking, but to make sure that we have a new arrangement. We have had one meeting already with the working group of the disability benefits forum which has been set up to consider the matter. That meeting was extremely useful, and I am hopeful that by April, and possibly before, we will have a checking system that commands widespread support, as the benefit integrity project did not.

Mr. Dismore: I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on his promotion. Many of my constituents with disabilities will welcome the Government's commitment to getting rid of the benefit integrity project. I look forward to its going in April, but there is some concern about what will replace it. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that whatever replaces the benefit integrity project aims at providing the right amount of benefit, which on review may mean benefits going up or down? Can my hon. Friend give my constituents an assurance that the Benefits Agency staff will be properly trained to administer the system fairly and effectively?

Mr. Timms: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his congratulations and also for drawing attention to the widespread support for the Government's announcement ending the benefit integrity project. I can confirm that the emphasis of the new system will be on correctness—on making sure that the benefit paid is correct at the outset, and that it continues to be maintained correctly thereafter. That means that benefit payments will be increased if entitlement warrants it, and not simply decreased, as was overwhelmingly the case under the benefit integrity project. I agree with my hon. Friend that the training of

staff to administer the new system will be of paramount importance. We are considering carefully how we can make sure that we get it right.

Mrs. Angela Browning: Does the Minister understand that the average number of cases going to appeal in my constituency show that three out of four people get the mobility component of disability living allowance under the benefit integrity project restored on appeal? What will the Government do about the people who lost their Motability cars and have now had that benefit legally restored, but can no longer find the money to put down the deposit on a car to replace the one that they lost?
I welcome the Minister to the Front Bench and hope that he will give me a better answer than the Prime Minister gave to the same question in July. I circulated the Prime Minister's reply to my constituents going to appeal, and they were not at all impressed with his answer.

Mr. Timms: I thank the hon. Lady for that part of her question which was good wishes and welcome. She makes a fair point that, under the arrangements put in place by the previous Government for the benefit integrity project, many reductions in benefit were overturned on appeal. I am pleased to tell her, however, that the rate of appeals that are upheld has consistently increased because of the steps taken by this Government to improve the evidence available to adjudication officers. Motability has put in place an arrangement that allows people to keep their cars while a reduction in benefit is under review. That has been a helpful measure. If it is established that someone is not entitled to the high Motability component, it is not appropriate to continue payment of that benefit and the car that goes with it.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: My hon. Friend will be aware that any period of doubt about disability payments is of great concern to those involved. It is tremendously important that the Department does everything accurately. Is he totally satisfied that the information technology available and the new systems coming on stream are capable of handling the detailed work that is essential to the fairness of such decisions?

Mr. Timms: My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance and sensitivity of those matters. We must ensure that we get them right. We undoubtedly need to introduce improvements in information technology and the Accord programme—the access to corporate data procurement project—on which we have embarked will enable us to do that. I am confident that increasingly we shall be able to offer the active, modern service to which the Government aspire in order to meet the aspirations of my hon. Friend's constituents and people throughout the country.

Mrs. Margaret Ewing: I welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box and the announcement of the abolition of the benefit integrity project, which has been widely despised and has caused much stress to individuals throughout the country. Does the Minister have figures that show the administrative costs of running the project so far? What savings does he think have been


made, and will there be a ring-fenced budget for the training of staff, who will have to deal with extremely sensitive issues?

Mr. Timms: I should be happy to write to the hon. Lady with those figures, which have been published and are readily available. I agree about the importance of training, and we are paying great attention to training for the new system. I am confident that we shall have the resources that we need to get that right so that our checking system commands widespread support, not least among disabled people and the organisations of and for disabled people. The benefit integrity project manifestly did not command that support.

Pensions (Earnings Link)

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: What plans he has to re-link the calculation of the state old-age pension with average earnings. [63191]

The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling): As I announced in my statement on 15 December, the basic state pension will remain a contributory non-means-tested benefit, uprated, as we promised, at least in line with prices.

Mr. Corbyn: Does not my right hon. Friend understand that many pensioners are rightly angry that the Tory Government broke the link with earnings in 1980 and that pensioners have subsequently lost at least £25 a week from their state pension? Does he accept that means-tested benefits and private pensions are more expensive to administer and less secure for pensioners? Is not the best way to raise the living standards of the oldest people in our society to raise the basic state pension in line with earnings, as the previous Labour Government did, to ensure that we eliminate poverty among the elderly?

Mr. Darling: No, I do not accept that. Over the past few years, in addition to the basic state pension, many more pensioners have had rights to occupational pensions, private pensions and so on. If we were to uprate the basic state pension in line with earnings, in 2010 the cost would be £11 billion. That would do little for the poorest pensioners, while giving money to people who might not need it that much. As I made clear in my statement last year, our strategy is to do far more for poorer pensioners, who would have retired on benefits had it not been for the change of policy that I announced. As a result of our proposals, those who earn less than £9,000 will double the rate at which they accrue a pension. That is a better use of public funds. It will do far more for poorer people, who will see a real benefit and enjoy a decent retirement when they reach that stage.

Mr. Peter Viggers: Can the Secretary of State confirm that, so modest and, indeed, so feeble are his proposals for pensions, that by 2050 there will be 8 million pensioners eking out an existence on means-tested income support?

Mr. Darling: I do not accept that. Indeed, the pension proposals that I set out at the end of last year have been quite widely welcomed. The object of the exercise was to

ensure that people who had worked throughout their lives would retire on a pension above income support. That is not the case under the present policies, which we inherited and the hon. Gentleman supported. The Government's proposals mean that most people who work throughout their life will be able to enjoy a retirement in which they will have a decent income to enjoy the years that lie ahead of them.

Pensioners (Poverty)

Mr. Norman Baker: What measures he has taken to reduce poverty among pensioners. [63192]

The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Stephen Timms): We have reduced VAT on fuel and introduced winter fuel payments to help pensioners with their heaviest quarterly fuel bill.
As my right hon. Friend has said, we announced last month in the pensions Green Paper that, from April, we will introduce a new minimum income guarantee for pensioners of at least £75 a week for single people and £116.60 for couples.

Mr. Baker: I hear what the Minister says, but is he aware that many pensioners in my constituency—in Seaford, Polegate and other places—genuinely doubt the Government's commitment to dealing with poverty among pensioners? Will he look seriously at Liberal Democrat proposals to increase the basic pension by £5 for those aged over 80 and by £3 for those aged over 75? Does he understand that my constituents want a fair deal for pensioners from the Government?

Mr. Timms: I can reassure the hon. Gentleman about the Government's commitment. We made it absolutely clear in our manifesto that we would give priority to the poorest pensioners because that is the group which requires the most urgent action. The minimum income guarantee allows us to concentrate the extra help on those pensioners and offers to those on income support a substantial increase in their income from next April. We could not have achieved that if we had used the resources on the basic pension instead.

Mr. John Bercow: Given the importance of avoiding or reducing poverty among carers who retire, will the proposed carer's pension take the form of a funded personal pension—which could be portable and flexible so that, when the circumstances of the carer changed, the value of the pension could change accordingly—or will it simply be a state-funded addition to the carer's pension?

Mr. Timms: It will be provided within the state second pension. We have proposed that carers will be credited with contributions so that, in effect, they will gain about £1 a week in pension for each year of caring that they undertake. It will not be a funded scheme, but it is a huge step forward for carers, which has been widely welcomed and is long overdue.

Mr. Quentin Davies: On behalf of those on the Opposition Front Bench, I warmly congratulate the Minister on his promotion.
Perhaps, under pressure from Conservative Members, the Government are at last making a little progress, given that the Secretary of State has at least half acknowledged to my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir S. Chapman) that means testing can be extremely damaging and extremely unfair. In that case, one might reasonably ask why the Government do nothing but extend its application to bereavement benefits, incapacity benefit, the minimum income guarantee and even to fuel payments and so forth.
Does the Minister realise that the present system is so perverse that, if he were an independent financial adviser who suggested that people on small earnings should take out a personal pension or save money where the return would be substantially negated by the loss of means-tested benefits, he would be liable for criminal prosecution for mis-selling?

Mr. Timms: I enjoyed that question. I am rateful to the hon. Gentleman for his congratulations on behalf of those on the Opposition Front Bench and I can reassure him that the progress that we are making is not as a result of pressure from him and his colleagues, although it is substantial.
We acknowledged in the Green Paper that, under the present system, some of those who qualify for the minimum income guarantee achieve no benefit from their savings and that some people with modest second pensions do not qualify for the minimum income guarantee at all. A range of measures could help, such as some form of disregard on pensioners' income. In the Green Paper, we asked for people's views on the best way in which we can help. We want to give better rewards to savers and, unlike the last Government, we aim to present proposals—in this Parliament—to achieve that end.

Disabled People

Mr. Gareth R. Thomas: What representations he has received about his plans to reform benefits for people with disabilities. [63193]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley): Consultation closed on Friday 8 January. Two hundred and eighty-three responses have been received and are being analysed. Forty-seven of those responses came from Members of Parliament—including the Back-Bench Member for City of York!—but I assure the House that all will receive equal consideration.

Mr. Thomas: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his well-deserved elevation.
My hon. Friend will know from his own constituency experience that what many disabled people want is the opportunity to work. In meetings that I have held with disabled constituents, what has consistently come across is the often unavoidable additional cost that they would incur in obtaining work. I realise that it is early in my hon. Friend's term of office, but will he tell us what he intends to do about the problem?

Mr. Bayley: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind congratulations.
The Government's policy is that work, for those who can work, is the best provider of welfare. We are removing obstacles to work for disabled people by introducing the 12-month linking rule and other measures, such as the disabled persons tax credit, to make it easier for disabled people to obtain employment. We are also working with the Department for Education and Employment on the £195 million new deal, and on creating a single gateway to provide a single point for advice on benefits and employment opportunities.

Sir Teddy Taylor: I wish the Minister every success in his new post. Will he take seriously the real concern, alarm and anger felt by disabled people whose benefits are being cancelled on review? During my weekly surgery on Saturday, I was visited by a woman and her child, who has only one small finger on each hand and one small toe on each foot. The woman had been told that there was no need for any disability living allowance-related provision of any sort.
The Government have announced that they will try to save £750 million on disability benefits. Will the Minister genuinely consider the problem, and recognise that many disabled people are greatly alarmed by the cancellation of benefits for what they see as no good reason?

Mr. Bayley: The Government are addressing the problem, as my hon. Friend the Minister of State made clear a few minutes ago. Replacing the benefit integrity project will create a fairer system for assessing benefits. It will allow benefits to rise in appropriate cases, as well as allowing them to fall, as happened under the benefit integrity project.

Mr. David Lock: I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on his promotion.
When my hon. Friend considers benefits for disabled people, will he pay particular attention to the position of medical staff employed by the Department of Social Security? The anger of a number of my constituents whose benefits have been removed is shared by the general practitioner who has treated them year after year and knows their condition in detail, only to find that a doctor who has assessed them for perhaps 15 minutes has decided that they can do far more than they actually can. It may even be that a disabled person was too ashamed to admit the extent of his or her disability, or that the doctor happened to catch that person on a good day. In many instances, people can do a certain amount on one day, but much less on other days. When reforming the benefit integrity project, will my hon. Friend give thought to the key liaison between GPs and those doctors who see claimants on a one-off basis?

Mr. Bayley: I thank my hon. Friend for his congratulations.
The Government are aware of the problem and are considering it. My hon. Friend should be aware, however, that a GP may view his patients' disabilities in a different light from the doctor employed by the Benefits Agency, who has a responsibility to establish, on medical grounds, whether a person is entitled to the benefits that he is claiming. That is the basis on which decisions are made.


As my hon. Friend the Minister of State has just pointed out, it is our intention to ensure that the right decision is made as often as possible first time.

Mrs. Theresa May: May I congratulate the Minister on his promotion to the Front Bench, although I should perhaps warn him that, at the rate the revelations are appearing in the newspapers, his rise may be even more meteoric than he expects?
One of the key features of the Government's plans to reform disability benefits is a cut in the number of people who receive severe disablement allowance. Today, of those receiving that benefit who qualified after its introduction in 1984, more than two thirds qualified at the age of 20 or over, yet in future, no one aged 20 or over will qualify to receive the benefit because the Government say that, at that age, they will have had the opportunity to see whether work is a realistic option for them.
Does the Minister accept that that would hit those disabled people in their early 20s who are still students or in training? Will he raise the age threshold to 25 to ensure that at least those young disabled people in higher education or training who are preparing themselves for the world of work are not hit or betrayed by that particular cut in disability benefits?

Mr. Bayley: I thank the hon. Lady for the kind remarks at the start of her question. She will be aware that many people have made representations to the Department on the disability reform proposals. Consultation closed on Friday.
The Government's approach is to improve benefits for those who are most severely disabled and for the poorest people. Our proposals for reform of severe disablement allowance will improve the benefit to young people by up to £25 a week. The other representations that have been made will, of course, be considered as we draft the Bill which will come before the House shortly.

Housing Benefit

Mr. David Kidney: When he expects to announce the results of the review of housing benefit. [63194]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): We have announced a project to simplify the housing benefit rules and regulations and to improve the administration and delivery of the benefit. We are working in conjunction with local authority associations and further announcements will be made in due course. In addition, we have announced a small-scale pilot, which will examine the issues surrounding the under-occupation of social housing.

Mr. Kidney: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Does she agree that the housing benefit system established by the previous Government can sometimes operate as a severe disincentive to work because of the steep rates at which benefits are withdrawn when recipients find work? Does she also agree that the Government's policies to be introduced later this year—the range of new deal projects and the working families tax credit—offer a powerful incentive to work for those who can work? Therefore,

does she agree that it might be helpful if housing benefit could be changed this year, so that those changes could work with the grain of those other Government policies?

Angela Eagle: My hon. Friend is right to point out that some severe work disincentives—what I call the hassle factor—are inherent in the current design of the benefit. People spend so long trying to get their housing benefit allocation right that they are reluctant to come off that benefit to try, say, a temporary job. In the review, we are looking to see how we can reduce the hassle factor and whether we can create more obvious incentives to make that often difficult move from benefit into work. I accept absolutely my hon. Friend's point.

Mr. Edward Leigh: Following the answer that was given by the Secretary of State to my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight), will the Minister give a categoric pledge—an assurance—that there has been and will be no watering down in the campaign by the Government and local authorities to combat housing benefit fraud?

Angela Eagle: Far from watering down the campaign to combat that fraud, we are gearing it up not only in the fraud strategy itself, but in our fundamental look at how the benefit is administered. As I said earlier, we have already announced £100 million extra to resource local authorities to enable them to check much more effectively how they administer housing benefit. The hon. Gentleman should await announcements on some of the changes in the simplification project, which I hope will tighten the gateways to that benefit and ensure that payments are right first time and stay right.

Fuel Poverty

Mr. David Winnick: What recent representations he has received over fuel poverty among the elderly on small incomes. [63195]

The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Stephen Timms): We have no record of any recent representations to the Department principally about fuel poverty among the elderly, but, since January 1998, we have received 439 letters about winter fuel payments.

Mr. Winnick: Does my hon. Friend accept that elderly people suffer much distress as a result of cold weather such as we have had today? What the Government have already done—what the Tories refused to do—is very welcome indeed, but could Ministers consider whether there could be a more flexible arrangement for cold weather payments? I and, I am sure, all Labour Members, feel that it is quite wrong that so many elderly people on small incomes should suffer such distress during cold weather when we should be in a position to help them.

Mr. Timms: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that important subject. I agree that the introduction of winter fuel payments has been an important step forward. About £1 billion will be made available this Parliament. A total of 3.3 million payments were included in a computer run at the weekend, and we hope that the full 10 million payments will have been paid out by the end of next week.
My hon. Friend is right to say that the cold weather payments scheme is another important means of the Government tackling the problem. An interdepartmental group on fuel poverty, led by the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale), is considering a wide range of fuel poverty issues, including the arrangements for cold weather payments, and it intends to publish proposals in the spring.

Pensioners (Benefit Refusals)

Mrs. Jacqui Lait: What estimate he has made of the number of basic rate pensioners who have refused increased benefits to which they are entitled; and if he will make a statement. [63196]

The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling): We are committed to encouraging and helping more pensioners to claim their entitlements. The new minimum income guarantee will help in that respect. Estimates specifically of basic rate pensioners who are not claiming their entitlements, as opposed to pensioners in other circumstances, are not available.

Mrs. Lait: In an earlier answer to the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay), the Secretary of State referred to the mystery surrounding the number of pensioners who refuse to apply for benefits. Has he never met pensioners in his constituency who are too proud to claim and believe that benefits are charity? Would not it be better for the Government to stop attacking the insurance principle and increasing means testing, and to allow those proud elderly people to feel that they have contributed sufficiently to be entitled to claim?

Mr. Darling: I have been a Member of Parliament for only 11 years, but in all the time that I spent in opposition I never heard the Tory Government saying that they were against means testing. Indeed, I rather got the impression that they were in favour of it. When we made our announcement on pensions in December, we reinstated the insurance principle—the contributory principle—and we are making it absolutely clear that if people work throughout their life and pay their contributions they will get a decent pension in retirement. The reason for so many pensioners now having to rely on income support is that for the past 20 years the Tory Government did absolutely nothing to put pensions on a proper footing for the future.

Mr. Vernon Coaker: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons why pensioners do not claim the benefits to which they are entitled has been the fact that over the past few years there has been continual talk of fraud in the system? People have been made to feel that they are somehow not entitled to the benefits that they can claim. The Government have introduced measures of success that include take-up rates. If we can encourage people to claim, and measure our success by criteria such as take-up rates, we will ensure that pensioners get the benefits to which they are entitled.

Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend is right, and the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) raised an important point—at least in the first part of her question—because some current pensioners who are entitled to income

support are not claiming it because they feel that they should not be doing so, perhaps because they are too proud to do so. The whole point of the minimum pension guarantee was to ensure that the money we had available would go to the poorest pensioners. We are determined to ensure, by whatever means that we can, that as many people as possible who are entitled to that benefit receive it, so that they can sit at home and live in some comfort. That simply has not happened in the past.

Means-tested Benefits

Mr. Julian Brazier: What plans he has to reduce the number of families on means-tested benefits. [63197]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): We are determined to do everything that we can to help those who can work to do so, which is why we want to modernise the structure of working-age tax and benefits; to create the right incentives for families; and to reward work while simultaneously providing security for those who cannot work.

Mr. Brazier: The Secretary of State, in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir S. Chapman), said that the Department was reviewing the impact of means-tested arrangements on pensioners' disincentives to save. Regardless of the outcome of that review, will the Minister confirm two points? First, will she confirm that the minimum pension guarantee will substantially increase the number of pensioners on means-tested benefits? Secondly, will she confirm that, under current plans, the minimum pension guarantee will substantially increase the number of those on small incomes who face strong disincentives to save?

Angela Eagle: I fail to understand the sudden concern about means-tested benefits. The figures show that, in 1978–79, 4.9 million people in families were receiving income-related benefits. By May 1997, at the end of 18 years of Conservative rule, 11.6 million people in families were receiving those benefits. I think that that is where the problem lies.

Child Care

Mrs. Sylvia Heal: What plans he has to assist those parents wishing to work with the costs of child care. [63200]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): Parents need access to affordable, good-quality child care to help balance work and family life successfully. We have already increased the help available for child care costs through in-work benefits, and the Government have introduced the Working Families Tax Credit Bill, which will provide for a much more generous child care tax credit.

Mrs. Heal: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Is she aware, however, of the particular difficulty of lone parents in finding affordable good-quality child care? In the Rowley Regis ward of my constituency, one in seven families with children are lone-parent families who have


to pay, on average, £15 a day for private full-day child care. Will she tell me what help the Government will give to lone parents in my constituency to solve that problem?

Angela Eagle: The help takes a variety of guises, the first of which, as I said earlier, is a new national child care strategy. That strategy will create many more child care places across the country, to ensure that affordable high-quality child care is available to all who need it. Secondly, the new child care tax credit, which is part of the working families tax credit, will replace the old Tory disregard—which was used by only 5 per cent. of people—and provide tax credits of up to 70 per cent. of child care costs. Therefore, not only will we make child care available across the United Kingdom to those who need it, but we will make it affordable.

Miss Julie Kirkbride: The Minister might remember that, at the end of 1998, the Government produced a White Paper on the family which brazenly declared that, on balance, it was better that children were brought up in two-parent families than in any other form of family. Why then do the Government seek to discriminate against two-parent families in which the mother chooses to stay at home to look after the children? Under the Government's proposals, those families will

receive absolutely no help or money from the state, whereas all the other alternative forms of family will receive help with child care.

Angela Eagle: The idea is to make work pay and to give extra help to those who are low paid, so that they can go out to work and support their family, and so that they are more better off than they could ever be on benefit. All our policies are focused on that very clear aim.

Mr. Gerry Sutcliffe: It is clear that this Government are doing more on child care than the previous Government, who did nothing to address the problem. Will my hon. Friend consider the need to reassure single parents, especially mothers, who worry about what will happen when their children are ill? It is all very well having child care places, but the problems caused by a child's illness can act as a disincentive to going out to work.

Angela Eagle: Our fairness at work legislation will incorporate the European directives on family policy, which will introduce parental leave and family leave to allow for such eventualities. The Government are committed to more family friendly employment policies and, increasingly, employers are realising that it is better to allow their labour force to balance work and family more appropriately than the Conservatives' policies allowed.

Yemen

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Robin Cook): Madam Speaker, with permission I should like to make a statement on recent events in Yemen. There have been three separate developments affecting British nationals in Yemen since the House last sat. On Saturday, and again this afternoon, I have discussed those events by phone with the Prime Minister of Yemen, Dr. Iryani.
The most recent event was the kidnapping on Saturday of Mr. John Brooke from the compound of the oil company for which he worked, in the Marib area of northern Yemen. Our ambassador was in contact immediately with the Yemeni Prime Minister and Interior Minister to insist on full consultation with us on any steps being taken by the authorities to secure Mr. Brooke's release. This afternoon I have expressed to Dr. Iryani our strong view that the release of Mr. Brooke should be achieved through mediation, and the Prime Minister of Yemen gave me an assurance that no force would be used without consultation with us.
We currently have in Yemen a team of police officers who are preparing an account of the previous kidnapping. Two of those officers are experienced in hostage negotiation. We have made their skills available to the Yemeni authorities.
We have also been in contact over the weekend with the Government of Yemen about the five British nationals who have been detained there. We understand that the five men were detained on 24 December. Our embassy in Yemen first heard of the arrest of unnamed British nationals on 29 December and immediately demanded access to them, including through a succession of meetings between our ambassador and Yemeni Ministers. However, access was not granted until last Friday, when our consul-general immediately visited the prison in Aden but was given access to only three of the five men.
On Saturday, I stressed to the Prime Minister of Yemen the vital importance to us of obtaining access to all five men under detention in order to reassure ourselves and their relatives that they are well and being properly treated. Dr. Iryani undertook to make immediate inquiries and on Saturday our consul-general was permitted access to one of the other two men. Access to the fifth man is still being denied on the ground that he has Yemeni-British dual nationality. However, this afternoon Dr. Iryani assured me that access to the fifth detainee will be granted today or tomorrow.
On Saturday, I stressed to the Prime Minister that if the five men are to be charged, those charges must be brought soon. They and their relatives are entitled to know why they have been arrested, and the five men cannot defend themselves against allegations until they are charged. If they are not to be charged, they must be released. This afternoon, I sought and obtained fresh assurances from the Prime Minister of Yemen that all five men will have access to legal advice, that any charges will be subject to due process of law in open court, and that consular staff will have the right to attend.
I now turn to the tragic events arising from the seizure of 16 tourists in southern Yemen. Twelve British nationals, two Australians and two Americans were

kidnapped by an armed group on 28 December. According to the Yemeni authorities, the kidnappers' key demand was the release of a number of Yemenis and foreigners arrested by the Yemeni authorities. As soon as we learned of the kidnapping, the British ambassador spoke to the Yemeni Interior Minister, Hussain Arab. He made clear our paramount concern for the hostages' safety. He pressed on the Yemeni authorities our strong wish that no precipitate action be taken which could endanger the hostages' lives.
The next day Yemeni security forces encircled the kidnappers and their hostages. There was a firefight, in which four of the hostages were killed. Three were British. I am sure that the whole House will join me in extending our deep sympathy to the families who grieve for those who were killed. The testimony of the survivors confirms more forcefully than any hon. Member can that all the hostages conducted themselves with the greatest courage and concern for each other.
There is still much confusion about how the firefight started and about whether hostages had been killed before the security forces intervened. At the request of the Foreign Office, a team of British police officers went to Yemen on 1 January. In close co-ordination with the visiting Federal Bureau of Investigation team, they are preparing a full account of what happened.
On Saturday, I expressed to the Prime Minister of Yemen the importance of full co-operation between our Governments in the investigation. We agreed that the best way for us to maintain sound bilateral relations was to work closely together in establishing the truth and in bringing the full truth into the open. It would be wrong to prejudge the police investigation or to anticipate what it may conclude about the handling of the rescue attempt by the Yemeni authorities. Let us be clear, however, that the primary responsibility for what happened rests with the armed gang who seized the hostages in the first place. Those responsible for seizing the hostages, and for the death of four of them, must be pursued and brought to justice.
I pay tribute to the British ambassador, Vic Henderson, to Consul-General David Pearce and to their small team. They have responded with professionalism and with total commitment to a succession of demanding events.
Two areas of public policy require to be reviewed in the light of recent events. The first relates to the travel advice issued by the Foreign Office. Our travel advice in relation to Yemen has for some time warned of the risk of kidnapping. Following the recent tragic deaths, our travel advice has been strengthened to advise
against all non-essential travel to Yemen".
Following the recent kidnapping of Mr. Brooke, our ambassador has today met representatives of the British community to impress on them the need for heightened vigilance, and to discuss with them the implications for their safety of recent events. All British nationals are being encouraged to re-register urgently with the embassy.
Our system of travel advice is widely held up as a model of good practice by other countries. It already tends to the side of caution, although it is necessary that it should not veer to over-reaction if it is to retain credibility among the public. We are constantly looking for ways of improving distribution of that advice. We need to be sure that it is seen by anyone thinking of travelling to dangerous parts of the world.
I am therefore inviting tour operators and other members of the travel industry to the Foreign Office to discuss how we can further improve the distribution of our travel advice. We hope to develop with them a voluntary agreement on advice to clients booking holidays to countries where there is a risk. We would wish such an agreement to include a commitment to notify our consular division when tours are being organised to dangerous countries.
The second area of public policy that we must review in the light of recent experience is how we can improve our support to other countries in handling the seizure of hostages. I can announce that the Foreign Office will appoint a police expert with experience in hostage negotiations as a consultant to the Foreign Office on counter-terrorism work. Our intention is that he or she will travel abroad to discuss the training needs of foreign Governments, and to offer advice on their handling of hostage-taking.
We shall also launch a global series of seminars and consultations to share best practice in handling terrorist incidents with countries around the globe. Last November, we held such a seminar within the G8 to pool expertise on handling kidnap cases. Now we must make sure that the expertise pooled at that London seminar is shared more widely with countries outside the G8. These initiatives reflect the two principles that must guide the conduct of our consular duty: first, that the safety of British nationals is our paramount concern; and secondly, that only we can succeed in securing their safety from terrorism only by close international co-operation in defeating the terrorists.
The whole House will wish to record its condemnation of terrorism. Kidnapping is a crime. It is the same crime whether it is committed for financial gain or for political reward, and it is as much a crime under Islamic law as it is anywhere else. I invite all hon. Members to join me in sending the firmest possible message to terrorists that we are determined to protect the safety of our nationals and to be robust in combating terrorism wherever it occurs.

Mr. Michael Howard: The whole House was shocked by the attack on British hostages in Yemen. Our deepest sympathy goes out to the families involved in the tragedy. We are also deeply concerned by other events in that country, including the continued detention without charge of British citizens and the abduction of John Brooke.
On the events surrounding the abduction of the tour group, can the Foreign Secretary confirm reports that the families were being informed of events by the tour company rather than the Foreign Office? The tour group was abducted on 28 December. The rescues and killings took place on 29 December, and the Yemeni ambassador was not summoned to the Foreign Office until 31 December. If it is true that the families were informed by the tour operators rather than the Foreign Office, can the Foreign Secretary explain why that should be so?
On the detention without charge of British citizens, can the Foreign Secretary confirm that they were detained on 24 December and that the families were not informed until 29 December; and even then, again, not by the Foreign

Office, which was apparently informed by the families themselves of what had happened? If those reports are correct, how did the families know about the arrests before the Foreign Office? What explanation can the right hon. Gentleman offer for that?
On 17 December, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister whether the Government had taken
all possible steps to safeguard British lives and property at home and abroad",
following Operation Desert Fox. The Prime Minister replied:
We have done all that we can to safeguard British lives and property."—[Official Report, 17 December 1998; Vol. 322, c. 1102–03.]
Can the Foreign Secretary say what steps were taken, not now, but then? Do not the steps that he announced today give the lie to the Prime Minister's answer to my right hon. Friend?
The Foreign Secretary will be aware that on 31 December, I called for joint investigations into the circumstances surrounding the abduction of the British tourists and the events surrounding the subsequent attempts to release them. I pointed to the vital importance of establishing why the Yemeni Government acted in the way they did.
The Foreign Secretary referred to the team of British police officers in Yemen, but there are reports that it has not been granted the facilities necessary to participate fully in the investigation. Can he say what co-operation has been received from the Yemeni authorities and what part British representatives have been allowed to play in those investigations?
On 30 December, I wrote to the Foreign Secretary asking for a review of the way in which assessment of risk to travellers is made in the Foreign Office and the basis on which advice is subsequently provided. I have yet to receive a reply to my letter, but I welcome what he had to say about the steps that he has taken. Can he confirm that there will be a full review in the light of those steps, and that he will report to the House on the outcome of that review?
I also welcome what the Foreign Secretary said about terrorism. The whole House will join him without reservation in his condemnation of terrorism—but does he have the faintest inkling of how ill his words lie with the Government's continuing release of those convicted of the most despicable terrorist offences without any progress being made on decommissioning?
The last statement from the Foreign Secretary on the on-going situation in the Yemen was made on 29 December. Why has he not appeared on the media to deal with the issues in the past few days? The events have given rise, yet again, to serious questions about the way in which the Foreign Office has discharged its duties. Can the Foreign Secretary assure the House that, when they have come to an end, he will review all aspects of the way in which the Foreign Office has dealt with these events and publish the results of that review, so that public confidence in the Foreign Office under his stewardship, which must be at an all-time low, can be at least partially restored?

Mr. Cook: I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his bipartisan support for condemning


terrorism. Of course, we would very much regret it if it were the case that any relatives felt that the Foreign Office had been slow in notifying them. It is not necessarily surprising that a competent and well-organised operator of that tour may have known of the relatives and next of kin before the Foreign Office, but I assure the House that I am confident that we were expeditious and competent in contacting relatives known to us.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked why relatives of the five people who were detained were not informed earlier. I told the House that we did not know of any British nationals detained until 29 December and we did not obtain any names from the Yemeni authorities until last week. We have made it clear that we expect clear, swift notification from the Yemeni authorities of any British nationals who may be detained by them. As for contact with relatives, we obtained access on Friday to see those detained. Three of them were visited that day and the relatives' lawyer was phoned by the Foreign Office on Friday to give the results of the visit. I cannot think of any swifter response by which to share with them the information that was available to the Foreign Office.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked what action was taken after the recent confrontation with Iraq which might have a bearing on the matter. Our travel advice was updated on 20 December to warn those who might be contemplating a visit to the Yemen of the rising tension in the area and the need to keep abreast of developments. It is the case that, at first, co-operation between the Yemeni authorities and the Metropolitan police was not as close as we would have wished. I am pleased to say that the word from the Metropolitan police officers in the Yemen is that they are now receiving satisfactory co-operation from the Yemeni authorities, who have shared with them the results of their investigation.
As I stressed to the Prime Minister of the Yemen—I am pleased to be able to tell the House that he fully agreed—the best way for us to ensure that this matter does not become a matter of greater contention in our bilateral relations is for both Governments and investigating teams to work closely together to establish the truth and bring the full truth out into the open.
Finally, we are confident that the way we develop our travel advice is correct; no one has suggested otherwise. We are equally confident that we have the best possible information on which to base that advice. The criterion is simple: it is to safeguard the British population—their safety is our paramount concern. However, we are open to helpful and constructive points as to how we might improve that advice. That is why we have sought dialogue with the travel industry—to build better consensus and understanding on the criteria employed in putting together the advice.
Lastly, I turn to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's attempt to turn this event into a party political occasion. I have to say that those remarks were more demeaning to him than they were damaging to the Government, and I think that on reflection at a future date he will wish that he had not made them.

Mr. Donald Anderson: The whole House will welcome the two specific initiatives taken by my right hon. Friend on the tourist industry and travel information and on the advice about dealing with

hostage-takers. As he said, it is of paramount importance that we have the closest possible co-operation with the Yemeni Government. Will he confirm that the Yemeni Government are now allowing the Metropolitan police officers to interview those hostage-takers who are in detention? What is his response to the reports in the British press at the weekend that over Christmas a camp was held in north London at which individuals were given military training that might be relevant to taking extremism and terrorism into areas such as the Yemen?

Mr. Cook: The Metropolitan police officers in the Yemen have not had access to the suspects currently under detention there. The issue is not clear cut and it is by no means clear that, if the roles were reversed and the police officers of a third country came to Britain to interview suspects whom we were holding under charges, we would necessarily grant such access to the investigating authorities of another power. Still, the Yemeni authorities have co-operated fully in passing to our police officers the results of the interrogation and also other parts of their investigation. At present, we are satisfied with the level of co-operation and I have pressed the Prime Minister of Yemen that we should maintain the fullest co-operation.
I have seen the reports about a training camp. The camp referred to was in north Wales, I think, rather than in north London—

Mr. Anderson: Finsbury Park.

Mr. Cook: There were also reports of one in Crowborough. There have been investigations into the matter. The training provided purports to be survival training and also martial arts. We have not established that there was any breach of British law during such training. However, we will watch closely to ensure that, if any offence is committed under the provisions of the Criminal Justice (Terrorism and Conspiracy) Act 1998 that prevent conspiracy to commit terrorism abroad, the Act is properly enforced.

Mr. David Heath: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his very full statement. Will he accept the strong support of Liberal Democrat Members for the action that he has taken in respect of Mr. John Brooke and our shared concern for Mr. Brooke's safe recovery?
Regarding the British detainees, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that three conditions must obtain if we are to ensure fairness of process? First, there must be full and free consular access to all the detainees. Secondly, they must be made clearly and unambiguously aware of the charges that they face. Thirdly, there should be no obstruction to the legal support to which they are entitled.
With regard to the tragic events in December, and looking back to previous events in Chechnya, I welcome the review that the Foreign Secretary has established about travel information. However, will he examine two specific points? First, is there a case for placing a clear duty of care both on tour operators and on employers before people are put into positions of danger, or before bookings are made?
Secondly, will the Foreign Secretary examine the ease of access to travel information for the ordinary citizen as opposed to the tour operator? Travel information appears


on the internet, but not with quite the ease of access that is provided by the State Department in the United States. It is important that the currency of such information be constantly maintained. The information on the internet today was last updated on 29 December. It does not take into account events that have occurred since that date, which might suggest to a member of the public that it was not current.
Lastly, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that every co-operation will be given to Dr. Iryani and the Yemeni Government in sharing expertise and information so that we can fulfil our commitment, which I am sure that the whole House shares, to stamp out acts of terrorism wherever they occur?

Mr. Cook: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions and his support for our activities in relation to John Brooke. We have pressed for consular access to all five detainees, and, following my most recent conversation with the Prime Minister of Yemen, I am confident that we shall soon be able to secure that access.
I have made it clear that if there are to be charges, they must be brought soon. It would be wrong to detain any of those men without charges being brought against them. If charges are not brought, they should be released.
I am pleased to say that the consulate in Yemen has suggested a lawyer for the five men. I understand from the Prime Minister of Yemen that the lawyer will be given access to the men, and we shall certainly insist on their having proper legal advice on how to conduct their defence against any charges.
The hon. Gentleman referred to a duty of care on travel operators and employers. We can consider that and I would not rule out any way of improving our advice on safety for British travellers and workers; but I doubt that such a duty of care would be easy to operate because, as events in Yemen have tragically shown, circumstances in a country can change unexpectedly and swiftly. Nevertheless, we are anxious that our travel advice should be fully known to operators, employers and members of the public. That is why it is available by phone and on Ceefax and an internet website. We are happy to consider any other way of distributing that advice and we shall consider that when we meet travel operators.

Mr. Roger Godsiff: I thank the Foreign Secretary for coming to the House and making a statement on the difficult situation in Yemen. I draw his attention to the fact that the families of the five British citizens who have been detained in Yemen were concerned and distressed because of the period between 29 December and 8 January when there was no access to the detainees and very little information was forthcoming about what was happening to them.
I thank the consulate service for the work that it has done since Friday in obtaining access to the men. Has my right hon. Friend had a full report from the service on the detainees' well-being? Has he emphasised to the Prime Minister of Yemen that there is a need for charges speedily to be brought and for a trial to be arranged—otherwise the men should be released?

Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend quite properly echoes the point that I have made twice—that the Yemeni authorities

must release the five men or charge them. Of course, they should be charged only if there is sound evidence on which the charges can be based.
I understand entirely the distress that must have been caused to relatives between 29 December, when they heard of the arrests, and 8 January, when we were able to share information with them. I can only say to the House and the relatives that we shared information with them on the very day that we obtained it. We had no information to communicate to them before 8 January.
The consul-general has visited four of the five men. My hon. Friend asks about their health. The consul-general reports that they appear fit and well and he did not see any evident points of ill-treatment. However, my hon. Friend is aware that one of those four has complained that he was ill treated in the first week of his detention. We are anxious to obtain access to the fifth person to reassure ourselves and his relatives that he also is fit and well.

Sir Teddy Taylor: While I fully understand that it is the Foreign Office's job to protect British citizens abroad, the Foreign Secretary must be aware of the danger of the Foreign Office acting as the emperor of the world when dealing with small and disorganised countries. He has this afternoon instructed the Government of Yemen to charge the five speedily or release them, but will he also make it clear that if, by chance, the five are found to have been involved in planning terrorism in another country, the Government will fully support that Government in dealing with them?
Will the Foreign Secretary also give a firm commitment that the British Government will do all in their power to make sure that any training establishment or organisation is dealt with? Although we appreciate that it is his job to help British citizens abroad, will he make it abundantly clear that if any of our citizens travelling abroad are involved in potential acts of terrorism, the Government will condemn them clearly and openly?

Mr. Cook: I plainly cannot make any comment that might be seen to have any bearing on whether or not there is any validity to the arrest of the five detainees, but on the general principle, British citizens travelling abroad are of course subject to the laws of the countries in which they travel. The objective of our consular support is to make sure that if they should be charged, they are dealt with fairly within the legal process of a country and that the legal process is fair and open to scrutiny, with adequate opportunity provided for British citizens to defend themselves. We shall continue to make sure that that consular duty is provided.
As for any links that may or may not exist with the United Kingdom, I remind the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) that last year we passed the Criminal Justice (Terrorism and Conspiracy) Act 1998, which made it a specific offence to conspire to commit terrorist offences abroad. Of course, we shall be vigilant in examining whether that may apply to any case at present or in the future.

Mr. Tony Benn: Has the Foreign Secretary received any evidence, official or unofficial, that any of the kidnappings might have been related to the Desert Fox operation? Is he aware that many people throughout the middle east regarded the bombing of Iraq


by America and Britain as terrorist in character? Will he confirm that when the Prime Minister saw Nelson Mandela in South Africa recently, Nelson Mandela strongly condemned the attacks on behalf of the South African Government?

Mr. Cook: My right hon. Friend invites me to go over a debate that we held at length before the House rose for the recess. In response to his suggestion that the bombing of Iraq was a terrorist activity, I say only that we are absolutely confident of the full legal base on which we operated, rooted in Security Council resolutions.
In response to the particular point on which my right hon. Friend pegged his comments, it is clear from the statement by the Yemeni authorities that the principal objective of the kidnappers was to secure the release of Yemeni and foreign citizens who had been detained by the Yemeni authorities. That demand was made by the kidnappers, and the Yemeni Government are clear that that was the motivation behind the hostage taking, and no other.

Mr. Keith Simpson: Can the Foreign Secretary confirm whether any of the British armed forces or security forces are involved on behalf of the British Government in giving advice to the Yemeni authorities in dealing with these kidnappings, given their tremendous expertise? I relate this in particular to the case of Mr. John Brooke, of Hardley Street in Norfolk. The Foreign Secretary will be aware that, given the recent tragedies in Yemen, Mr. Brooke's family and friends know that anything that is done or said can have a deep and immediate impact on Mr. Brooke's survival.
What advice is the Foreign Secretary giving to British companies that have British nationals based in Yemen, who are obviously very vulnerable to such kidnapping and ransoming?

Mr. Cook: The whole House fully understands the deep anxiety that must be felt by Mr. Brook's family and friends as to his position. We shall certainly do all we can to secure his safe release. With that in mind we have, in Yemen and through my phone calls from London, impressed on Yemeni Ministers that we wish his release to be achieved by mediation and negotiation, not violent confrontation. I am pleased that we have been given an assurance that before any military action was taken, there would be consultation with us during which we could express our concerns.
Two police officers currently in the Yemen with the British police team are skilled and experienced in hostage negotiation. I have urged the Prime Minister of the Yemen to allow them to provide advice, and I believe that the Yemeni authorities could be helped if they were to take advantage of the skills and experience of those two police officers.
On the other point that the hon. Gentleman raises, there are some 300 British nationals in the Yemen. Many of them are working for companies with experience in the Yemen, and with bona fide commercial interests there. We are urging them to adopt extra vigilance in the light of recent events, and we are seeking to update our register of British citizens in the Yemen. We very much hope that

those measures will succeed in defeating the attempts of others who may seek to emulate the events of recent weeks.

Mr. George Galloway: The shadow Foreign Secretary confirmed, not just today but over the weekend, his reputation for being unable to see a belt without hitting below it, and it greatly diminished him and the House.
Will the Foreign Secretary accept my congratulations on the statement that he gave the House today? It was a masterly statement, outlining a very fine set of steps, which I believe will improve our position. However, will the Foreign Secretary resist the temptation—which he has been offered here today—to conflate the holding of the innocent British hostage, Mr. Brooke, with the holding under Yemeni law of the five British citizens, whose mystery tour to Yemen may turn out to be a good deal more sinister than the shadow Foreign Secretary currently thinks it was?
Yemen is a poor third-world country, which happens to have the misfortune to be amidst the maelstrom of middle east problems and the rising tide of fundamentalism, without many of the state resources that ideally would be in place to deal with them. I hope that the Foreign Secretary will resist the temptation to equate the Government of Yemen with the terrorist gangs who are responsible for holding our British citizen, Mr. Brooke, at this time.

Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend makes a fair point that the Government of Yemen are faced with a very serious challenge from fundamentalists and extremists, who certainly have demonstrated a willingness to use weapons and to use violence. I expressed to the Prime Minister of the Yemen our full support for him in combating terrorism.
Our legitimate interest as a Government is to ensure that, where our nationals may be caught up in events such as the seizure of the 16 hostages, we are fully consulted and their release is effected in ways that do not put their safety at risk. As I said in my statement, that should not cloud the fact that the prime responsibility for what happened to those hostages who, tragically, were killed, rests with those who seized them in the first place; and that our condemnation of terrorism throughout the world must apply very strongly to those who put their lives at risk.

Mr. Jonathan Sayeed: As one who has travelled to Yemen many times, and who narrowly evaded being kidnapped some years ago—I believe in the late 1970s—I have some understanding of the tribal rivalries and the fact that, in that country, the Government's writ does not go much further than the foothills. What I find extraordinary is the fact that Foreign Office travel advice for that country—where anarchy rules so frequently, and where there has been terrorism consistently, for decades—was not substantially upgraded after the bombing of Iraq. Perhaps the Foreign Secretary can explain why. He needs to tell us why neither he nor the Foreign Office took action after what we knew would cause considerable difficulty in the Muslim world.

Mr. Cook: The hon. Member speaks from experience of the country, but he is wrong in what he says about the


travel advice. The entire first paragraph of that advice was rewritten to draw attention to the tensions in the region. However, I must tell the hon. Member that at present all the evidence is that the seizure of those 16 hostages was prompted not by anything to do with Iraq, but by the detention of alleged extremists and fundamentalists within the Yemen. It was a Yemeni seizure, but it was also a Yemeni issue. In that respect, our travel advice cannot in any way be properly faulted.

Mr. Keith Vaz: I thank the Foreign Secretary for speaking twice over the past three days with Dr. Iryani, the Yemeni Prime Minister, and for his personal intervention, which has created a very important dialogue at a very high level of the Yemeni Government. His approach, which is to work with the Yemeni authorities, is the right one. Will he consider appointing a special envoy, accountable to the Foreign Secretary, who can go to Aden in order to co-ordinate the various British agencies that are already there; or is he quite satisfied with the way in which matters have been co-ordinated in that country on our behalf?

Mr. Cook: In the present difficult circumstances, it would be unwise to express satisfaction. None the less, our ambassador and consul-general are doing an excellent job and receiving access to the highest level of the Yemeni Government. Our ambassador has spoken repeatedly to the Interior Minister and the Prime Minister of Yemen, and as my hon. Friend has rightly said, I have spoken twice in three days to the latter.
I am confident that our contact is at the highest level and working well. If, in future, we felt that a special envoy would have a role to play, appointing one would certainly be an option. We shall certainly take any option that will assist us in ensuring that we safeguard the rights and safety of British citizens.

Mr. Crispin Blunt: I welcome the part of the Foreign Secretary's statement on the appointment of a counter-terrorism hostage expert, on a retainer, to the Foreign Office; and the fact that the right hon. Gentleman has fence-built sufficiently to re-establish proper co-operation with the Yemeni authorities. Is not it a pity that we reached a point where that exercise was necessary?
Given that we have been sophisticated and robust in dealing with hostage-taking and terrorism in this country, and that Yemeni soldiers put their lives on the line to attempt to rescue the hostages, should not the Government's first reaction have been to defend and support the Yemeni Government in advance of any investigation into what happened, rather than allow the stream of criticism in the media with, seemingly, some official connivance?

Mr. Cook: We have been extremely careful in what we have said as a Foreign Office and a Government about these tragic events. None of us, as yet, is in receipt of the police investigating team's authoritative report on what may have happened. It is a matter of concern that an attempt—military action—to release the hostages was made without consultation with British authorities. We have very strongly expressed the view that we needed to

be consulted before any such action was taken, and that we did not want any action to be taken that would put the safety of British citizens at risk. We regret that we were not consulted, which is why I impressed very strongly on the Prime Minister of Yemen that we must be consulted before any similar attempt is made in the case of Mr. Brooke. I welcome the fact that efforts to secure his release are proceeding by mediation and negotiation.

Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours: Are reports that the kidnappers were calling for the release of the five arrested men true? Is there any link between Supporters of Sharia—the organisation in London—and the five men who are being held in gaol? If there were a connection—or not—would we, in certain circumstances, allow a British official to appear in court in Aden either in their defence or for other purposes?

Mr. Cook: If we were summoned by either the defence or the prosecution to supply an official to provide evidence that was relevant to court proceedings, we would of course make the most careful response and wish to help the legal process. We would certainly want to be of assistance, where it was relevant, to the defence.
My hon. Friend invites me to speculate on two points which may, or may not, turn out to be relevant to any future legal case affecting these five people. I shall decline the invitation to do so. I think that the whole House would agree that it would be wrong for us in any way to comment on that matter.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: Can any British tourist, British Council employee or expatriate feel safe when, as soon as Ramadan is over on Sunday or Monday, there is the prospect of yet more missiles raining down on Baghdad? Once upon a time, nobody was more eloquent than the Foreign Secretary on the effects of cruise missiles. If that is to be done again, what will be the effect in the Arab world?

Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend's question, as I am sure he would be the first to concede, does not immediately relate to the events that we have been discussing today. In response to his point, may I say that there are no such plans? If there were to be any such event, there would be a full statement to the House and that would be the time at which to review the matter.
In the mean time, we are clear that our travel advice to all those going to countries in the region reflects such risk as there is. We are clear that that travel advice is correct, and with the travel industry, we wish to make sure that it is fully distributed and fully up to date. That is the immediate task on which we shall focus.

Mr. Tom Clarke: I thank my right hon. Friend for a typically comprehensive, competent and concerned statement to the House. With regard to his reference to the British police, will they be working and investigating separately or together with the FBI, which he also mentioned? When does he expect their conclusions, and to whom will they report?

Mr. Cook: I can assure my right hon. Friend that there is full co-operation with the FBI team, and both sides are sharing with each other the fruits of their investigations. I do not know precisely when they will report. We expect


the British team to return in the near future, but how long before it can submit a considered report is a matter for the team. The report will come to Her Majesty's Government and will be equally available to the Home Office and the Foreign Office.

Mrs. Maria Fyfe: May I add my congratulations to my right hon. Friend? Does he agree that after the tragic events in Yemen at Christmas, the impression has been created in some parts of the media that people set off to the wilder and more dangerous parts of the world on holiday with no more information than a few paragraphs in a travel brochure, but that in fact that is not the case? Responsible travel companies give full information to would-be travellers. They also up-date it as quickly as possible when they get new information from the Foreign Office. They warn travellers that there may have to be last-minute changes to travel plans and suggest a substantial reading list to travellers, so that they can be fully informed about the countries that they are to visit.
That being so, if there are any changes to normal practice arising from the review, can my right hon. Friend tell the House what plans there are to publish them so that travellers can continue adventure travel?

Mr. Cook: I agree with my hon. Friend that the company concerned is a responsible, established company that maintains full awareness of the travel advice from the Foreign Office. One issue that we are anxious to address in our dialogue with the travel industry is the fact that because we review our travel advice regularly, there may well be occasions where our travel advice changes between clients booking their holiday and departing on their holiday.
In our discussions with the travel industry, we want to make sure that those who book holidays to places where there may be risks are provided with a telephone hotline number or access to the internet website or Ceefax, so that they know where to look for changes in the travel advice and can check it before departure. We think that that is a right duty of care towards clients booking their holiday,

and we are anxious to ensure it through an agreement with the travel industry, so that all clients have up-to-date information at the time of departure.

Mr. Richard Burden: I agree with my right hon. Friend that our first thoughts must be with the families of the hostages tragically killed, the family of Mr. Brooke and the families of the men currently being held in Yemen. That is why it is important that we get to the bottom of what happened in the case of the hostages and insist that the men being held be brought to a fair trial or released.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should avoid the temptation, present in some sections of the media, for the matter to degenerate into some kind of anti-Yemenism? I do not ask him to speculate whether the following was the case, but if the Yemeni Government had been given information that British institutions or sites were under threat, the same sections of the media would be the first to criticise the Yemeni Government if they had taken no action. We owe it to a country with which we have long relations and which is attempting to establish, albeit imperfectly, a fledgling democracy, and to the Yemeni community in this country, not to allow an anti-Yemeni feeling to develop.

Mr. Cook: We have some legitimate concerns about recent events, which we have expressed to the Yemeni authorities. I have already highlighted two of those: first, that in the case of the first hostage seizure, military action was taken without consultation with us; and secondly, that we were not notified timeously about the people who had been detained by the Yemeni authorities on 24 December. None the less, I strongly endorse the general drift of my hon. Friend's question. It is important that everybody should recognise that the Yemeni authorities are faced with a serious terrorist challenge and that the people who are primarily responsible for the deaths that result from it are the terrorists themselves. That is why we are determined to work closely with the Yemeni Government to find all possible ways in which, together, we can defeat those terrorists.

National Health Service

The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Frank Dobson): I should like to make a statement on how the national health service is coping with the recent sharp rise in the number of people falling ill.
First, on behalf of everybody in the country, I want to thank all the people working in the health service and local social services for the huge effort they have been putting in to ensure that everybody gets the treatment and care that is needed. They have done all that because there has been a surge in the numbers of people going to see their doctor, and an even bigger surge in the number of people calling ambulances and helplines and going to hospital. The sharp increase in the level of illness is confirmed by the increase in the number of people dying, which in some parts of the country has meant that families trying to arrange funerals face long delays.
The figures put together by the Public Health Laboratory Service from returns made by the Royal College of General Practitioners show that the present outbreak of flu and flu-like illnesses seems likely to be on the same scale as that which occurred in the winters of 1994 and 1996, although the figure may go higher. The figures reflect the increased number of people with flu-like symptoms who go to see their local GP. Until now, flu and flu-like illnesses have been worst in the west midlands and the north, but there have been sharp peaks elsewhere.
The demand for ambulance and hospital services has shown a much larger increase, with daily ambulance journeys almost doubling in some places. Both the Merseyside and the Greater Manchester ambulance services saw the demand for ambulances shoot up to more than 1,000 journeys a day, compared with an average of 500 to 600. For the London ambulance service, this new year was the busiest on record with more than 4,700 journeys, compared with a daily average of 3,000.
There have also been some tragic fatalities due to meningitis. I extend my sympathy to the families concerned. Parents are right to visit their family doctor to seek advice if they have concerns. In November, the chief medical officer advised general practitioners to refer suspected cases of meningitis promptly to hospital, and he will renew that advice.
The national health service is better prepared than ever before to cope with those illnesses, and in most places hospitals have coped well with the pressures that they face. In August, I asked the NHS to prepare itself, to strengthen emergency and ambulance services, to make best use of the beds available, to improve discharge arrangements and to prevent unnecessary admissions to hospital in the first place. It has done so. Almost 2,200 schemes are under way nationally, backed by the £159 million announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the pre-Budget statement. Those include £750,000 to improve intensive and high-dependency care in London; £200,000 for one-stop clinics in Walsall; £175,000 for better home treatment and care in Leeds; £140,000 for a community-based phlebotomy service in Gloucestershire; and £45,000 to help prevent fractures among the elderly in Kent.
In August, we also announced that GPs could this winter, for the first time, offer flu vaccinations to all their patients over 75, rather than confine vaccinations to

particularly vulnerable groups. As a result, a third of a million extra doses have been given this year compared with last, and vaccine remains available.
We are tackling particular pressure points. Over the past week, those parts of the NHS that are suffering particular problems which could be helped by extra cash have been told that they can draw on the £50 million contingency fund, which is there for that purpose. In some places that will mean more high-dependency beds being provided to relieve pressure on intensive care beds.
The position today is that 35 adult intensive care beds are free and available for use. The situation seems to be easing, but it could get worse again if icy weather were to lead to a lot of falls, particularly among the elderly. The NHS cannot be complacent. It is not, and I am not.
I will not pretend that the NHS everywhere has coped as well as the public are entitled to expect. Such an increase in illness will always cause difficulties, but those difficulties have been made worse because of the serious underlying problems that we inherited. We inherited a rundown NHS with serious staff shortages. Many buildings are out of date, much equipment is old and unreliable, methods of working are not making best use of new technology—particularly information technology—and there are not enough staffed beds. The Government are getting a grip on the short-term consequences of those problems and are also laying longer-term foundations to build a modern and dependable NHS. Much of that work is already under way.
One of the causes of the shortage of nurses is the cuts that the previous Government deliberately made in the number of nurses going into training, which fell from 15,000 a year at the time of the 1992 general election to fewer than 13,000 when they left office, having fallen at one point to 11,700. If they had not made those cuts, there could have been an extra 11,000 nurses available to the NHS today. It takes three years to train a nurse, so the country is paying a heavy price for those years of Tory neglect.
This year, 15,500 nurse training places will be available and 2,500 more people are already in training compared with when we took over. As I have said before, we must also reform the system of nurse education and training, which the previous Government introduced in the 1980s. It has achieved some of its objectives, but its emphasis on the academic element has put off some potential recruits.
Many nurses, when they qualify, think that they lack the practical skills necessary on a ward. The transfer of responsibility to the education sector from the health service has broken the old links between individual hospitals and nurses in training, to the disadvantage of both. Many nurses and nurse managers recognise the need for change, so I hope to carry the profession with us—but reform there must be.
The previous Government refused, right up to the end, to recognise that there was a shortage of nurses. This Government recognise that reality and therefore training extra nurses is a major objective. We spelt that out in our evidence to the pay review body. This year, we also made it clear that the pay review body should give special attention to the pay of nurses in the lower grades. Like the nurses, we want reform of the present rigid grading structure and better career development prospects so that those vital staff have a modern, fair and flexible system for pay and promotion. I repeat my hope that the


independent pay review body will propose a settlement that is fair to nurses and midwives and which the Government will be able to implement in full.
We are also addressing the concerns of qualified nurses who have left the NHS. We want to attract them back, not only with better pay, but with family friendly shift patterns and a better and safer working environment. If we are to retain existing staff, recruit new staff and persuade former staff to return, we must provide them all with the modern buildings, plant and equipment that they need. We have already embarked on the biggest hospital building programme in the history of the NHS, and there is more to come. High priorities for more small-scale investment include the replacement of outdated and unreliable equipment.
Last September, the Prime Minister announced that the national lottery new opportunities fund would help to provide new and better equipment for the detection and treatment of cancer. He also announced that, from April, we would be investing £30 million to renew 25 per cent. of accident and emergency departments to make them better and safer for both patients and staff. Ambulance services will be given new control systems, new vehicles and new equipment. All those will help the NHS to cope better with winter pressures.
New methods of working will also help. We launched three pilot schemes in Newcastle, Preston and Milton Keynes to test NHS Direct, a nurse-led 24-hour helpline. The schemes have been a great success: providing advice and reassurance round the clock, they have been very popular with patients, and have had a positive impact in helping them to look after themselves and reducing unnecessary calls on other services. Over Christmas and the new year, NHS Direct pilots took almost double their usual number of calls—itself an indication of the upsurge in illness. After receiving advice from the nurse to whom they spoke, about half the patients with flu symptoms were able to look after themselves. That shows how the NHS is delivering new and better services, and it is being extended to the rest of the country.
With the special investment of £44 million that we have provided, NHS Direct has already been extended to the west midlands, where it took more than 1,150 calls in its first week of operation. By April this year, it will cover more than 20 million people in the west country, Manchester, south London, west London, Essex, Nottinghamshire and other places: over 40 per cent. of the population. That will provide a new and better service for patients and at the same time help people to avoid resorting unnecessarily to GPs, the 999 service or their local hospitals.
Finally, there is the question of beds. Under the last Government, the number of acute beds was reduced by 40,000 and the number of general beds by a further 23,000. In September I announced a review of beds in the health service—of the number of beds involved, the sort of beds and where they should be. Preliminary work for the review suggests, not surprisingly, that the health service needs more beds. Our extra investment in the NHS over the next three years will ensure that we can respond rapidly when we have the final report.
Then there is the question of intensive care and high-dependency beds. Soon after taking office, on the advice of the specialists in children's intensive care, I authorised a shift of extra funds from the paperwork of

GP fundholding to children's intensive care, and the concentration of the service in regional and sub-regional centres, with special arrangements for retrieval of very sick children by specially trained and specially equipped staff. As a result of the additional investment, the service can now provide up to 300 children's intensive care beds, very specialist new-born babies' beds and high-dependency beds. The new system has been working well, but recently there was an unacceptable delay in dispatching an ambulance from Nottingham to Rotherham. In the light of that experience, I have insisted that each children's intensive care unit, with its local ambulance service, must review its arrangements to ensure that it is possible to stabilise and transfer very sick children safely and promptly.
Intensive and high-dependency care beds are vital to the treatment of many people who have had operations, as well as accident and emergency cases. They demand huge resources. Intensive care is not just a matter of a bed and some specialist equipment. To care properly for one patient for one day in intensive care can require the services of around six specialist nurses as well as specialist intensive care doctors, anaesthetists and others.
Previously, the overall level and availability of intensive and high-dependency care has not had the attention that it deserves. That is why the Audit Commission is co-operating with the national health service and the Intensive Care Society to carry out a detailed study of the operation of intensive and high-dependency care in the NHS. I hope that that will provide a sound basis on which to plan for better services. I am also reviewing the role of the emergency bed service and of the national intensive care bed register. None of that is a criticism of the people working in those services—more than anyone else, they want the system to be modernised.
It has always been a source of pride in our country that, when difficulties crop up, people rally round to help and they have certainly done so on this occasion. I thank them all. In particular, I thank Dr. Ian Bogle, chairman of the British Medical Association, for his repeated advice to the public that normally healthy adults should use services in a considerate and responsible way.
From next April, for the first time in 20 years the NHS will operate on a budget entirely set by a Labour Government. It will benefit from the first stage of our £21 billion extra investment. In the meantime, I know that people realise that, when so many people suddenly fall sick, as they have in some places recently, it is inevitable that treatment and care cannot be as prompt as at other times. I want to ensure that we provide the people who work in the NHS with sufficient tools and resources to ensure that the impact is much less in future.
Over the past few weeks, nurses, doctors, midwives, health visitors, cleaners, kitchen staff, managers, porters, ambulance staff, laboratory scientists, therapists, pharmacists, telephonists, clerical, administrative and maintenance staff and social services staff have all performed wonders on our behalf when their own ranks have been severely depleted by the same illnesses that are affecting the rest of us. Many of them have kept on working while "under the weather" themselves. Many


have returned early from leave to help their colleagues. Others have cancelled leave that they planned to take. I thank them all. They have done us proud.

Miss Ann Widdecombe: Although I join the Secretary of State in his tribute to the many workers in the health service for the way in which they have coped with the emergency, I feel that my first question must be: what is new in the statement? What in the statement is going to make the slightest bit of difference to those who are now lying on trolleys, in fear and pain, waiting for treatment? The second question is: does he really think, with his complacent statement, that he is on the same planet as those people waiting for treatment?
Does the Secretary of State now agree, with the benefit of hindsight, with what I told him as early as last September—that money for winter pressures in our health service is far too little and too late when it is issued in November? Would it not be simple common sense to allow our hospitals to know how much they will receive much earlier in the year, so that they can plan exactly how the money will be spent?
Is it not the case, as the British Medical Association has been saying along with us, that the obsession of the Labour Government with their so-called early pledge on health service waiting lists has made the current crisis in our health service far worse than it need have been and distorted clinical priorities away from patient priorities? Will the Secretary of State tell the House how many hospitals were continuing to admit routine waiting-list cases while patients were lying in pain on trolleys in corridors, with many forced to seek the help of relatives and friends to provide basic nursing care?
The Secretary of State has, understandably, been telling patients not to use accident and emergency services unless it really is an emergency, but at the same time doctors have been telling worried parents not to take any chances if they suspect that their children may have even the earliest symptoms of meningitis. Is not there a breakdown of communication in the Department of Health?
Does the Secretary of State recall that in January 1996 the right hon. Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and, indeed, the now Prime Minister, promised the public that a Labour Government would immediately set up a trolley task force? What has happened to that task force? Is it stuck on a waiting list along with some of the Government's other early pledges? It is no good the right hon. Gentleman telling us that he has set up an inquiry into beds, when what he promised was an inquiry into the excessive use of trolleys.
Will the Secretary of State confirm that he has cut nurse training by 3 per cent. from the levels that the Conservative Government had planned for 1997–98? He made much in his statement of what he suggested were our reductions. Will he own up to having cut 3 per cent. from our planned levels in his first year in post? His belated attempts last week to wriggle out of the blame for the crisis in our health service will impress nobody in the light of that cut.
How is the Secretary of State's wish list of nursing recruitment intended to be met? Will he acknowledge the use that is even now being made of the private sector, and

deduce from that that it is time to break down the ideological barriers that he continually sets up between the public and private sectors?
The Secretary of State mentioned 35 intensive beds. Where are they? Are intensive beds available in every region, or is there a concentration in particular regions? Why, in the national priorities guidance that he issued last year, is nurse recruitment not listed as a priority? Will he now, at last, abandon his ludicrous concentration on raw numbers on waiting lists in favour of waiting times, which are a far more accurate measure of whether people are getting a satisfactory service from the NHS?
I welcome the Secretary of State's good will on pay for nurses, but can he assure hard-pressed health authorities that he will make the additional money available and not expect it to come from patient care? Will he admit that it is time for a slightly more mature debate on the health service? [Interruption.] I am pleased that Labour Members are agreeing with that at last.
Does the Secretary of State agree that the problems in the health service have been there since its inception and that the extreme, and welcome, expansion of the health service, and the excess of demand over supply, have bothered every Government from Bevan's time onwards? Will he admit that the magic wands that he promised—or, to be fair, because he was not then a health spokesman, that the then Opposition promised—before the general election were not to be found?
Has not the time come for the Secretary of State to be more humble in his approach, when the nation knows that, although he went to the country with the slogan, "14 days to save the NHS", for the past 14 days he and his policies have flayed the NHS?

Mr. Dobson: I welcome the right hon. Lady's characteristic humility and lack of assertiveness. She asked what was new. I have presented the up-to-date facts, including the ones that she cited. I have given the House and, to the extent that our debate is covered, the people, the true and up-to-date position. That is something new, because, with Parliament not sitting, we did not have the opportunity to do that before.
The right hon. Lady seems to think that, because of the massive effort that people in the national health service put in to reduce waiting lists by 150,000 between April and November, they are somehow rendered incapable of dealing with emergencies and urgent cases in December. If the Opposition think that, they are barking up the wrong tree.
The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) has asked me effectively to ban all treatment of waiting list cases. However, as she is constantly ranting on, there are large numbers of people on the waiting list who have serious and life-threatening conditions. We have made it clear, as we always do, that it is up to clinicians to judge who should have priority, including, in some circumstances, who should have priority for intensive care beds.
The right hon. Lady asked about meningitis. Those who are offering advice on meningitis to the public have a dilemma. As I explained, the chief medical officer has advised general practitioners to rush children to hospital if they have any concerns or suspicions that those children may have meningitis. Conversely, the chairman of the BMA—on behalf of the profession generally, not on my


behalf—has said that healthy adults, who generally are not as susceptible as children to meningitis, should think twice before seeking treatment. I do not think that there is any difficulty with that advice. It is certainly not a matter of the Department of Health speaking with two voices. Moreover, it is a silly, stupid, petty and party political point to suggest that the Department is speaking with two voices.
The right hon. Lady suggested that there was something wrong with being concerned about trolleys. When we were elected to office, we discovered that the previous Government had, quite rightly, established an emergency services action team, the function of which is to examine emergency services, to try to sort out emergency services and to plan for the future—which is what we have done.
I have never ruled out the possibility of relying on the private sector to provide additional help if units within the national health service cannot provide it. About a month ago, the right hon. Lady was denouncing me for not allowing such private sector involvement; now, she is denouncing me for allowing it. It would be better if she tried to introduce a little consistency into her argument.
In a factual question, the right hon. Lady asked whether intensive care beds are available in every region. The answer is yes—or the answer was yes when the service provided me with the information. It is quite possible that, in one or another region, there will be a sudden burst of people coming into accident and emergency and the available beds will be occupied. However, I was informed that every region has some intensive care beds. I might add that, once we started examining the matter of intensive care beds, we discovered that the previous Tory Government had never known how many intensive care beds there were in the United Kingdom. We shall therefore take no criticism on the matter from Conservative Members.
The right hon. Lady produced a document entitled "Ten Measures to Help the National Health Service". However, none of the measures dealt with paying nurses, who never got a mention in the document. When she suggests that paying health service staff can be done only at the expense of patient care, she causes great offence to those who work in the national health service, as those who are paid in the national health service are those who are providing patient care.
The right hon. Lady talks about the national health service as if it faced some unique problems. All I can say is that every country in the developed world is concerned about the future of its health care system, and that all the Ministers from abroad whom I meet tell me that they are rather envious of our system because it is a lot more efficient and cost-effective than their commercial, semi-commercial and insurance-based systems, all of which spend a fortune on paperwork. Our national health service—except under the previous Government's ridiculous internal market—does not spend a fortune on paperwork.
The Tory party had better make up its mind about emergency planning for the winter. The right hon. Lady is suggesting now that we should have acted sooner on the matter. Why was it that, when we made all our plans last winter, they were described in an official Tory press release as a public relations stunt?

Mr. Kevin Barron: The nation will be grateful for my right hon. Friend's statement. Given the

years of neglect of the NHS, especially in nurse training, I am glad that we may now look forward to a future with more nurses looking after patients in the national health service. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, over Christmas, the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) appeared to be more obsessed with opening up the private sector for NHS patients than with sorting out the problems of the NHS that the Tories neglected for decades?

Mr. Dobson: I certainly accept the points that my hon. Friend makes. We must try to ensure that the additional resources, in the various forms that I have described, are in place in the future. We must also try to make additional provision this winter for those areas that are suffering particular problems. That is what I authorised last week and those areas that can benefit from an immediate cash injection will get it, but many can not.

Mr. Simon Hughes: First, the Liberal Democrats join in the tribute to all those who work for the health service in both winter and summer. The Royal College of General Practitioners and the Public Health Laboratory Service have confirmed that there is no flu epidemic and that, although the numbers suffering from flu and flu-like illnesses have risen, they are not exceptional for a winter in Britain. In November, the Secretary of State said that unless we had exceptionally bad weather or a flu epidemic the NHS could face the winter with confidence. Just last week, the Secretary of State said that the NHS is in crisis. What changed in a month?
Secondly, I have to agree with the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) and others who have said clearly to the Secretary of State for months now—as the Liberal Democrats have said for years—that the obsession with reducing waiting lists is a folly and should be replaced by concentration on reducing waiting times and improving the quality of treatment. Will the right hon. Gentleman now give up that Government obsession of last year and replace it with better targets for this year? Can he assure us that no one has waited on a trolley for a bed because that bed has been kept for someone from the waiting list initiative instead of for emergency admissions?
Finally, the Secretary of State tried to put much of the blame on to the Conservative administration of the health service, which certainly under-resourced it. With hindsight, does he agree that a Labour Government who came to power in May 1997, but did not commit additional resources to the health service until July 1998–14 months later—should share responsibility for the under-resourcing of the health service this winter? If winter announcements are made in November, four weeks before winter begins, anyone can see that they may be too late to be effective in a winter such as the one we are having. In December, the Minister for Public Health said that there is no rationing in the health service, but that does not appear to be true unless the Secretary of State can guarantee to the House that everybody who needs a bed will get one at the moment they need it.

Mr. Dobson: First, I do not believe that anyone has any great faith in the scientific accuracy of the Public Health Laboratory Service epidemic figures, including the people who assemble them—[Interruption.] For the


purposes of this discussion, I am prepared to accept them, but if the definition had not been changed two years ago we would now be suffering what used to be called a moderate epidemic. We are not yet suffering a huge epidemic of the sort that happens about once a decade. We have confidence in the national health service and its capacity to cope, because in most parts of the country it has coped very well.
Secondly, we have brought down not only waiting lists but waiting times. During the period in which waiting lists have come down, the average time that people waited for treatment has also fallen, as has the number of people waiting more than 12 months for treatment. Unlike the Tories, we are not content with keeping only our own promises; we have kept some of theirs, too. During all the time the Tories had a target of having no one wait for 18 months, they failed to deliver on it in a single month. We have delivered it, and we are reducing waiting times.
The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) seemed to suggest that the extra money that we provided for the NHS somehow did not come in until July last year. He should cast his mind back a little. We found money for winter pressures for the previous winter. From 1 April, we found £1.7 million extra for the health service, and we have found another £250 million on top of that. In case the hon. Gentleman has forgotten his election promises, let me remind him that that is roughly three times as much as his party promised to spend on the NHS.

Mr. David Hinchliffe: I join my right hon. Friend's tribute to those who work in the national health service, and I particularly welcome his reference to those who work in social services. What was new both this year and last was that the Government brought about much closer working relationships with social services, which, despite all the difficulties of recent weeks, have substantially improved their ability to care for people in their own homes on discharge from hospital. Have the Government had an opportunity to evaluate fully the impact of the winter pressures initiative either last year or so far during the current winter?
May I tell my right hon. Friend of my concerns about West Yorkshire, where there have been specific difficulties and pressures? I pay particular tribute to those who work in the area, but the difficulties relate to some primary care services that patients have been unable to access. I recognise that general practitioners work extremely hard and have every right to their Christmas holidays. However, people have presented themselves to accident and emergency units in several cases because they have been unable to receive advice from GPs. Given the NHS Bill that will come before the House soon on the abolition of competition between GPs, might we consider future arrangements for GP practices to work together over holiday periods to provide back-up provision that would prevent people from presenting themselves unnecessarily at hospitals?

Mr. Dobson: My hon. Friend raises some important points. I do not have all the detailed figures for every part of the country, but I can illustrate the extra sums going into providing care for people outside hospitals by mentioning the money that has gone to the West Kent

health authority, which serves the area represented by the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald. That authority received £1.1 million for extra packages of home care, and a further £500,000 for further nursing home beds. I trust that those sums are working just as well this year as they did last year, when the right hon. Lady's party described them as a public relations stunt.
My hon. Friend referred to primary care services. In some parts of the country it appears that when general practitioners took holidays around Christmas and new year—not unreasonably; they are just like everyone else—there was a build-up of people seeking treatment. To be fair to GPs, many who realised that that was happening re-opened their surgeries. We must consider that problem carefully for next year. People go on about the millennium bug, but the millennium humans are even more important, and we shall have to make special arrangements to make sure that the NHS can cope with the extraordinary holiday period that we can expect next Christmas and new year.

Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: I have heard a bit of window dressing today, and quite a bit of sensible evolution. Even more, I experienced a familiar flavour during the statement. What the Secretary of State did not have to contend with was demonstrating junior doctors. I dare say that the modest improvement to the hours of junior doctors is one of the issues that has led to the other difficulties that the health service is experiencing. Ever was it thus.
I urge the Secretary of State to reflect on two serious comments. I welcome his commitment to reconsider how Project 2000 is working in practice. Saying that nursing should be a graduate profession had much merit, particularly for nurses in the community and specialist nurses. However, it may have discouraged some and resulted in disappointment for others who think that they are pursuing academic training for what is ultimately a practical task. Will he consider carefully nurses' education for the necessary tasks?
Will the Secretary of State look again at the resistance to flexible and local pay? Insisting on monolithic pay scales for the tasks that nurses do is extraordinarily unrealistic. Nursing problems in Newcastle are not the same as the acute recruitment problems in Surrey and parts of the south-east. Being so resistant to flexible pay was an error.
Lastly, I urge on the right hon. Gentleman a spirit of realism. Many hon. Members have made this point. The despair in the health service is hard to explain, but I think that too many people believed the rhetoric of new Labour that all the problems would be over and that there would be a massive input of resources when, in fact, it is back to the day-to-day task of trying to meet people's infinite wishes when all the service can do is meet their health needs.

Mr. Dobson: The right hon. Lady made one sensible point and one daft one. She is right to say that we need to review nurse education and training, not because we want to shift away from the improvements and achievements that have resulted from some aspects of Project 2000, but because its disadvantages are beginning to outweigh its advantages. I want a system that keeps the advantages and dispenses with the disadvantages. I want to discuss that with those responsible for nurse training and for representing nurses, and with the NHS as an employer, so that we get it right this time.
On local pay, the most popular thing that I ever said to the Royal College of Nursing was that we would get rid of the daft system of topping up the last bit of pay by local bargaining. It drove everyone mad and gave no one any worthwhile money.

Mr. Barry Jones: May I say to my right hon. Friend, to his face and bluntly, that his stewardship has been very good and that he should not be fazed by attacks from Her Majesty's Opposition, who had 18 years to put right the many problems in our still great national health service? Will he give more detail of the new money that he and his ministerial colleagues have put into our health service since he took office? Will he and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales visit my constituency and the Deeside community hospital, Dobshill hospital and Penyffordd hospital to see the wonderful contribution of nurses in my constituency?

Mr. Dobson: I hope that my hon. Friend will not take offence, but I try my very best to get out of my office at least once a week to visit parts of the health service, and at the end of this week I am supposed to go to Swansea. I do not think that I will make two visits to Wales in one week, but I will bear it in mind, as I am sure will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales. I share my hon. Friend's view that most people are reasonable folk and realise that all the things that were done wrong over 18 years cannot be put right in 18 months.

Mr. Julian Brazier: The Secretary of State telephoned me two days before Christmas to tell me that the number of beds at Kent and Canterbury hospital was to be halved and the accident and emergency unit run down. The unit was so busy that last week it even had a bed in one of the bathrooms. I was grateful for his courtesy in telephoning me, but words cannot describe the dismay felt by my constituents and many beyond the boundaries of my constituency. Can the Secretary of State tell me whether the pledge that his right hon. Friend the Minister for Public Health gave me in her answer to my Adjournment debate still stands: that no bed will be removed until it is clear that provision exists to cope with the need that exists?
Secondly, can he tell me what steps he will take to ensure that the whole of east Kent, in particular Canterbury, Whitstable and the small villages, which suffer from the worst congestion problems anywhere in the British isles, will have a proper 24-hour accident and emergency service?

Mr. Dobson: As I told the hon. Gentleman, who, to be fair, has campaigned vigorously for the Kent and Canterbury hospital, I have considered the services to be provided in that area, and have received advice from innumerable people and representations from even more. I think that I can at least claim credit for insisting on some substantial changes from the original proposals put forward by the people whom the Tory party appointed to run the health service in Kent. I have ensured special consultant back-up for the A and E service and that consultants are available for other specialist services in the area. I also gave the undertaking that I would keep a close eye on what was happening to bed numbers during the process of change to ensure that it did not go badly. If it looks as though things are going wrong, I am

prepared to step in and ensure that the bed reduction does not proceed as quickly, or as far, as presently agreed, let alone according to the huge changes that were originally proposed.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: Does my right hon. Friend agree that decisions on health service expenditure and where the money goes are much more important than other statements that we hear from time to time in the House? His ability to spend £1.7 million, set against the prospect of spending more than £20 billion, suggests that this humble, old-fashioned Labour stalwart may be able to do a much better job than those handcuff experts on the Tory Benches and the Liberal Democrats, who believe that we can solve all the problems of the NHS by raising an extra penny on tax. Does he understand that we will shortly reach the defining moment of what is to happen to that money? If he wants more nurses, will he give an assurance that he will pay them—and other NHS workers—a lot more money? He will be measured by that and prospects for a future Labour Government will be much rosier if he manages to resolve that problem, so that we have more, better-equipped and better-paid nurses, and if he ensures that, unlike last time, they are given all the money in one fell swoop.

Mr. Dobson: My good and hon. Friend knows as well as I do that, compared with the £1.7 million that I mentioned, we will be finding more than £3 billion extra for the health service next year—an increase of 5.7 per cent., added to an increase for the health service in the country as a whole of £21 billion in the next three years. What is more, we have announced that as a three-year arrangement so that people in the NHS can do what they have always demanded, which is to plan for a longer period rather than living from hand to mouth from one year to another. I can assure my hon. Friend that I sincerely hope, as I have said on innumerable occasions, that the independent pay review body will bear in mind the evidence that we have given about affordability, the evidence that it has taken from the nurses and our evidence to suggest that it should pay particular attention to the pay of the lowest-paid nurses to make going into nursing more attractive, and will come up with an affordable settlement, which the Government will be able to implement in full.

Mr. Damian Green: The Secretary of State will be as alarmed as I am at news of the steady trickle of nurses in hospitals in east Kent who, over the past couple of weeks, in despair at his stewardship of the national health service, have resigned to become agency nurses. They will not be impressed by his attempt to lay the blame on anyone but himself, nor, I suspect, by the sneering tone that he adopted about the East Kent health authority in his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), given that only two weeks ago he wrote to my hon. Friend congratulating him on the authority's work on hospital reorganisation.
We have heard the pious hopes of the Secretary of State. Will he tell us what he is doing now to staunch the flow of nurses resigning from the national health service? That flow is increasing and is likely to increase as long as he maintains his complacent attitude.

Mr. Dobson: That question takes the biscuit, given the hon. Gentleman's party's record. There are 140,000


qualified nurses, trained at public expense, who are no longer in the national health service. The vast bulk of those nurses did not leave over the past fortnight in east Kent; they left over the past 18 years while the Tories were in government, treating them badly and running them down.
National health service staff constantly raise with me the matter of their being subjected to assaults and abuse. When I talked to a senior member of, admittedly in that case, the medical profession about the matter, he told me that they had given up talking to Tory Ministers about the problem, because they were told that nothing could be done about it and that that was the sort of society in which we now lived. The Government do not accept that; we are determined to change things. [Interruption.] That was what the man told me and I shall take his word for it.
We have taken a great deal of action and if Conservative Members do not believe me, let me point out that, not long ago, under the previous Government, someone in the east end was assaulted in a hospital—that person's place of work—and although the person who carried out the assault was successfully prosecuted, if the management had had their way and if there had not been a great row about the matter, they would have disciplined and sacked the person who was the subject of the assault for fighting back. That is the standard of concern that the Tories offered nurses when they were in power.

Ann Keen: I, too, welcome the statement from my right hon. Friend, as will all health workers. They are more than satisfied with his stewardship of the national health service. He is an extremely popular Secretary of State, who is not afraid to go into Marks and Spencer at any time of the day to do his shopping.
One result of the Tomlinson report was the large reduction in the number of beds in London. However, not only was the number of beds reduced, but the role of nurses was reduced by the report. The nature of nurses' work means that they must have good memories and all those nurses whom we want to return to nursing have good memories. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that he will do everything in his power to convince them that family friendly policies are in place, and that shift patterns will not be subject to diktat, as they were under the previous Government? Nurses were told to like it or lump it; they lumped it and they walked. We have much convincing to do to bring those nurses back, but I believe that with the current team we shall do so.
Regarding nurse education, we need highly qualified and highly skilled nurses to nurse in today's complex health care system. Under the previous Government, we in nurse education were evicted off hospital sites overnight and moved into higher education. Will my right hon. Friend seriously consider bringing some of that education back into hospitals, now that we once again have a national health service, not a business of trusts?

Mr. Dobson: I thank my hon. Friend for making those points. In relation to nurse education, one of the most harmful things, certainly in London and some of the other big conurbations, is that because nurse training ceased to be the responsibility of the national health service, the

hospitals disposed of huge amounts of accommodation designed for nurses. One of the reasons why it is especially difficult to recruit and retain junior nurses in London and other big conurbations is the absence of anywhere for them to live that is reasonably secure and close to the hospital, and that they can afford. That is one of the reasons why I have opened talks with the Housing Corporation to find out whether we can start to make special arrangements for nurses so that we can once again provide nurse accommodation. That problem was one of the products of shifting nurse education out of the health service and almost exclusively into the education system.

Dr. Julian Lewis: The Secretary of State has referred to long memories. Does not he recall that under the previous Labour Government, nurses' pay fell by 3 per cent. and that during the 18 years of Conservative Government, it rose by 70 per cent.? Does not he understand that people are becoming exasperated with him boasting again and again to the House about distributing millions here and billions there, while they open their papers and discover that he is admitting that the health service is in crisis? Does not that reveal that the Government's actions smack more of creative accountancy than caring services?

Mr. Dobson: No.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Madam Speaker: Order. That was a very good and brisk reply from the Secretary of State. I was about to remind the House that the statement has now been running for almost an hour. I want to be able to call every hon. Member who wants to speak, but I can achieve that only with the co-operation of the House. I do not want long statements; I want direct questions and good answers like that just given by the Secretary of State.

Mr. Robin Corbett: The extra money that my right hon. Friend has made available for improved co-operation between Birmingham health authority and the social services department of Birmingham city council is delivering the goods. It means that people who do not need to go into hospital can safely be kept at home and those who no longer need to be in hospital can safely be returned home. Will he provide more such funds?

Mr. Dobson: Yes.

Mr. Peter Viggers: Does the Secretary of State accept that the recent crisis impacted as seriously in the Portsmouth area as anywhere else? Local management at Queen Alexandra hospital in Cosham and St. Mary's hospital in Portsmouth appealed to family and friends to come in to help to feed and wash patients. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Queen Alexandra hospital has a waiting list of 11,000?
In those circumstances, how can the Government possibly contemplate the closure of the only tri-service military hospital at Royal hospital Haslar in my constituency, where 110,000 patients are treated each year and 27,000 patients are treated in accident and emergency? Will the Secretary of State agree that his Department and the Ministry of Defence will receive an


urgent deputation with representations from Gosport expressing deep concern about the proposed closure and will discuss the way ahead?

Mr. Dobson: At the time of the announcement, I said that I wanted to ensure that any change was not to the disadvantage of the national health service and the people that it serves in Portsmouth, and I shall stick to that.

Mr. Bill O'Brien: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement, which demonstrates beyond any shadow of a doubt that the health service is safe in his hands. I welcome the distribution of the resources that he has outlined today.
In October, the Secretary of State assured me that the consultation procedure in the Wakefield health authority area would be in his charge and that he would call for a report. Will he urgently consider speeding up that consultation, which must be meaningful? I make that plea having received a letter from a constituent who advises me that when his wife took ill on Boxing day, no GP was available and they went to the hospital and had to wait two hours to see a doctor. His wife was admitted five hours later. The consultation process in Wakefield should be speeded up so that we can resolve the problems referred to me by my constituent. Will my right hon. Friend act urgently on those issues?

Mr. Dobson: I shall certainly examine, yet again, the state of consultation on services in the area.

Dr. Evan Harris: I was relieved to hear the Secretary of State draw back from seeking to blame influenza for the problems. It was ludicrous of him to seek to hide his bulky embarrassment behind a tiny virus. However, does he accept that front-line staff were affected by influenza and that it might be reasonable to vaccinate them through a decent occupational health service in the NHS? Why was that not done, and will he consider doing it in future?
Does the right hon. Gentleman further accept that the staff shortage was made worse by his decision last year to stage the nurses' pay award and that he is now reaping the whirlwind? It takes six years to train a medical student so, as the British Medical Association has today asked, will he reconsider his "short-sighted decision" to stage the vital increase in the number of medical students over seven years, and instead stage it over a shorter, more realistic period?

Mr. Dobson: First, I understand that the hon. Gentleman is a doctor, but there appears to be some theological disputation about the value or otherwise of giving flu jabs to usually healthy adults. Broadly speaking, I favour the idea, but I am told that many studies suggest that it is a waste of time and money and that it does not offer much protection. However, I am prepared to consider it, if I can be convinced that it is worth while.
I have forgotten the hon. Gentleman's second point.

Dr. Harris: Doctors' training.

Mr. Dobson: Oh yes. We have agreed to implement the Campbell report which recommended—let us not

underestimate this—a 20 per cent. increase in the number of doctors in training from 5,000 to 6,000. We are going ahead with it, but the increase needs to be staged. One cannot establish a new medical school overnight. They are rather expensive items—I assume the hon. Gentleman knows that if he went to one. Nor can one simply expand medical schools because they need additional staff, and those staff might be taken away from treating patients. The change has to be planned and carried out carefully, and it is.

Mr. Harry Cohen: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement and I welcome his acknowledgement of nursing shortages. Will he confirm that there are also serious and growing shortages among midwives? Does he agree that proper pay is important if we are to attract and retain nurses and midwives? Did he see the article by Will Hutton in The Observer yesterday, which pointed out that in the past decade, pay for nurses and midwives slumped from 85 per cent. to 76 per cent. of average earnings? Is not it time for a substantial above-inflation increase in pay for nurses and midwives?

Mr. Dobson: As I have said, I certainly want an increase that is fair to nurses and midwives and which is affordable. That is the necessary combination, and I should like that to be the case this year and in future. I also want the changes in grading and career structure which, I understand, the nursing and midwifery professions want, too. The two have to go together.

Mr. Graham Brady: Will the Secretary of State give the House his latest estimate of the increased number of pensioners now entirely dependent on the NHS following his Government's decision to withdraw tax relief for pensioners with private medical insurance?

Mr. Dobson: No, and in this respect I am exactly like the Government who provided the pensioners with the tax relief—they made no estimate before they gave it, and we have made no estimate in taking it away.

Mrs. Linda Gilroy: First, I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement. I, too, congratulate people nationwide, but will he join me in congratulating especially the people at Plymouth Derriford hospital, which last week treated more emergency patients than it has ever done before and is currently admitting the equivalent of more than one ward of patients a day? That certainly deserves acknowledgement.
Secondly, I do not know whether it has been brought to my right hon. Friend's attention, but there was another outbreak of meningitis at the weekend, and two young people are currently in the Plymouth Derriford hospital. The parents of the 1,000 children at the local Coombe Dean school must be very worried. In view of the rather confusing information given by the Opposition, will my right hon. Friend put it on record once again that young and vulnerable people should have no hesitation about going to hospital or to their general practitioner for treatment?

Mr. Dobson: It is certainly the case that, in November, the chief medical officer issued advice to all GPs, saying


that they should take meningitis very seriously and refer children in particular to hospital if they suspected that they might have it. I would certainly be very happy to congratulate the people at Derriford hospital, and no doubt all over the west country.
My hon. Friend's area will be among those that will benefit from the next stage of the extension of NHS Direct, which will be useful in Plymouth, but may be much more useful in the expansive rural areas of Devon and Cornwall, where getting to treatment or getting treatment to come to the patient is quite difficult. There is a lot of evidence that NHS Direct means that reassurance and advice can be given over a telephone line, to the infinite benefit of patients who are a long way away.

Mr. Eric Pickles: Part of my Christmas recess was taken up in visiting a grievously ill friend in Oldchurch hospital. I saw there some very high-standard nursing, much of it delivered by agency nurses; but I also saw beds in corridors, and I also saw care being given in a dingy, decaying and appalling building. On my way to Oldchurch I passed Harold Wood hospital, whose accident and emergency unit was cancelled due to a decision of the Secretary of State. We were promised that we would get a new accident and emergency unit in Oldchurch hospital. That promise has not been realised; it continues to slip, so my constituents must continue to receive treatment in a substandard hospital. Will the right hon. Gentleman now give a commitment to release money, so that he can make good his promise?

Mr. Dobson: If Oldchurch hospital is substandard, it did not become substandard in the past 18 months; it has been substandard for a long time. That was one of the reasons why Sir Leslie Turnberg and his colleagues who participated in the Turnberg review of health care in London decided that a new hospital was necessary. We have given priority to the development of plans for that hospital, and I hope that, when they emerge, we shall be able to approve them and deliver to that area a first-rate hospital—something which has been lacking for a long time because of the previous Government's indecision.

Ms Ann Coffey: It seems that the Conservative party is suffering from collective amnesia. Will my right hon. Friend remind the House that it took the death of a child under the previous Conservative Government to initiate an inquiry into failing paediatric services in Greater Manchester? The present Government have put extra money into paediatric care, which has meant a new high-dependency unit and an extra theatre at the Royal Manchester children's hospital, which means that children's lives which otherwise might be at risk are now being saved—and those are not my words, but those of a consultant who works in the hospital. Is not that something to be proud of?

Mr. Dobson: Talking of pride, my hon. Friend should be very proud of the part that she played in the campaign that brought that development about.

Dr. Peter Brand: I did a clinical surgery in my practice on Boxing day and worked for the

GP emergency services on the bank holiday. I can assure the Secretary of State that I have worked over Christmas for more than 25 years, and that there certainly was not an unusual outbreak of unusual disease this year. As he illustrated, in three of the past five years we had a higher incidence of flu than we have now.
However, I agree with the Secretary of State that we have a crisis in the NHS, and that crisis is there because there is absolutely no flexibility in the secondary services. Ninety per cent. bed occupancy may look good to accountants, but it certainly is not useful if one is looking out for the patients. Will the Secretary of State either define what the NHS is for, so that it restricts its activity, or fund it properly?

Mr. Dobson: First, I pay tribute to the hon. and learned Gentleman. I know that only lawyers are called learned in the House, but I believe that doctors are learned as well, so I shall call him learned. I thank him for the service that, as he said, he has provided over Christmas for a very long time.
The intervening water may slightly isolate and protect the Isle of Wight and its population, but there have certainly been huge increases in illness in some localities, including in the south and east of this country.
It would take a long time to describe what the NHS is for, but by and large, it is to provide top-quality care for people who need it, when they need it, paid for by us all.

Dr. Howard Stoate: I phoned my local hospital in Dartford this morning to find out how it was faring. I was told that, apart from one exceptionally bad day last week, it is doing extremely well, and that that one bad day was made considerably easier by the winter pressures money, which has allowed it to draft in home care teams from social services in order that people may go home much sooner. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is illogical for Conservative Members to criticise us for our waiting lists initiative? When we took office, record waiting lists were rising by record levels. That represents record numbers of patients suffering record pain and anguish. My right hon. Friend surely agrees that that is entirely what the NHS is there for.

Mr. Dobson: I must admit that I am rather surprised at the extent to which the Tory party—and, apparently, the Liberal Democrats now—seems to think that exceedingly lengthy waiting lists are perfectly acceptable. We do not, and we are doing something about it. Those working hard in the Dartford hospital may be inspired by the thought that, under this Government, they are getting a new hospital building, and that building work has progressed rapidly. I hope that they will be able to make use of it fairly soon.

Mr. Tony Baldry: The Secretary of State talked of pressure points. Is he aware that, as a consequence of this year's local government settlement, Oxfordshire county council will have to make substantial reductions in its social services budget, which are bound to lead to an increase in bed blocking?
Would not it be better if the independent pay review body told the Government what pay was needed to enable the recruitment and retention of sufficient nurses, and the


Treasury found sufficient funds to meet that requirement, rather than the Treasury telling the independent pay review body what was affordable?

Mr. Dobson: The sinner who is saved is always welcome, I suppose.

Mr. Simon Hughes: Collectively as well as personally.

Mr. Dobson: I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) is speaking collectively. The independent pay review body is supposed to come up with a sufficiently attractive settlement to keep nurses in the profession, attract new people into it and encourage those who have left to return, as well as bearing in mind affordability. We made that clear by changing its terms of reference. In the past, the body has been leaned on by Governments. We have made its terms of reference quite clear; that was accepted by everybody. We think that the situation is more straightforward. Clearly, if a settlement were not affordable, it would not be any good to anybody.

Mr. John Austin: Conservative Members have referred to beds and trolleys in corridors. Is the Secretary of State aware that such instances are known universally throughout the NHS as Bottomley wards, as a result of the one fifth cut in acute and general beds under the stewardship of the right hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley), and the reduction, year on year, in nurses training places?
I welcome my right hon. Friend's recognition of the problems in recruitment and retention of nurses. Will he consider particularly not just the issue of nurses, but other professions allied to medicine and the need to tackle low pay in them? Will he ask the pay review body to look specifically at the use of discretionary awards and their discriminatory effect on gender and race in the NHS?

Mr. Dobson: It is too late for me to ask the review body to do anything other than deliver its final report to myself and the Prime Minister. However, I have taken what I think can be described only as fairly serious and strenuous steps to try to reduce discrimination on the

ground of gender and the quite disgraceful discrimination to which many black and Asian people have been subjected in the NHS. I am phenomenally proud of the health service, but its record on that score is quite deplorable. We are determined to change that, and we are changing it.

Miss Anne McIntosh: The Secretary of State is on record as saying that only non-urgent operations will be cancelled. Can he explain that to my constituents living in the northern part of the Vale of York, where operations for serious heart conditions, some of which are life-threatening, have been cancelled over the next six weeks? The official reason given by South Cleveland general hospital is that the only consultant heart surgeon there is going off on study leave for up to five or six weeks. Does the Secretary of State agree that such behaviour is totally unacceptable, and will he intervene to ensure that constituents who are expecting operations over that period will be treated?

Mr. Dobson: All I can say on the specific case is that I shall look into it. I have some sympathy with the hon. Lady's point, but she should later address the same question to the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald who, as I understand it, was asking earlier that all work on waiting list cases should be brought to an end.

Mr. Simon Burns: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the question that he dodged and weaved around during the debate on the Queen's Speech? Given that parliamentary answers and the national health service executive in Leeds have supplied the figures, how can the right hon. Gentleman claim that he has fulfilled his promise on waiting lists with respect to the people served by the Mid-Essex hospital trust, when on 31 March 1997, 104 people had been waiting 12 months or more for hospital treatment, and the November figures show that 1,194 people had been waiting 12 months or more? In every month of his stewardship of the NHS, those figures have gone up.

Mr. Dobson: The figures may have gone up there, but they have not gone up everywhere. They have been coming down over the past six months.

Points of Order

Mr. Tam Dalyell: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I have given you notice of my intention to raise a point of order, which I believe is a matter of some consequence to the House of Commons.
In The Times today, under the headline
Betty Boothroyd set to quit early as Speaker"—
something that would be regretted by many of us—Ministers are quoted as opining on the matter. I do not know that it is the job of Ministers to opine in public on the matter of the retirement date of the Speaker of the House of Commons. That is a matter, rather, for the House of Commons.
Be that as it may, the article also states:
Loyalist Labour MPs feel that she can be too lenient in giving Commons time to government critics, such as Tony Benn and George Galloway over Iraq.
I was telephoned yesterday by an experienced member of the Lobby, asking for my comment on the idea that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow, Kelvin (Mr. Galloway) and for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen) and I had been given favourable treatment by you, Madam Speaker, in putting a minority case on Iraq—which, incidentally, may be far from a minority case in the country as a whole. I refuted the idea that we had been treated favourably. I said that we had been treated fairly, and that is all that Members of Parliament can ask of a Speaker.
The tenor of the conversation suggested nothing about loyalist Labour Members of Parliaments having said any such thing. It was quite clear that the Government press office had said it. That is rather a different matter. The issue that I put before the House is whether it is acceptable that spin doctors of any Government should spin against the judgment of the Speaker of the House of Commons. A Speaker's judgment can be criticised only by substantive motion of the House, can it not? It is important that only a substantive motion of the House could criticise the judgment of the Speaker in such a matter. Frankly, it has become a question of the House of Commons versus Downing street and the sooner that that is faced up to, the better.
Two Parliaments ago, I had an Adjournment debate on the role of the Prime Minister's press secretary, who at that time was Bernard Ingham. It may be necessary for one of us to raise another Adjournment debate on that subject because this matter transcends party politics.

Mr. Tony Benn: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. May I contribute?

Madam Speaker: Why not?

Mr. Benn: I urge you, Madam Speaker, to consider the point that my hon. Friend has raised because, quite apart from any party advantage that may be gained, that practice has grown up over a long period with all Governments, going right back to the Government of the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) and perhaps that of Harold Wilson. Information is conveyed to the public through the press and, increasingly,


Members of Parliament have to listen to the "Today" programme or watch the David Frost interview to find out what a Minister will say in the House later.
Given your historic duty not only to exercise the fairness from which I have benefited, but to protect the House, I urge you, Madam Speaker, to warn Ministers that it is an offence to authorise their press officers to make statements that should be made to the House. Will you also warn them that those press officers who criticise the Chair are in breach of a long-term practice? As my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) says, that can be dealt with only by a substantive motion in the House, which I once tabled much to my cost later, when I found it hard to catch the Speaker's eye.

Madam Speaker: I think that what is being expressed is not a point of order, but a point of view. I am sure that it will be noted in the appropriate places. There is a rainbow of views to be expressed in this House and, for as long as I am Speaker, those views will be heard.
May I refer to the earlier point made by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell)? I wish those who are interested to know that I have no intention to retire. When I come to that decision, this House will be the first to know.

Dr. Julian Lewis: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Can you advise the House whether the Government will make a statement on the allegations of breaches of company law by the former Paymaster General and on what the Government intend to do about those?

Madam Speaker: I have not been informed that a statement will be made on that issue. I am told during the course of the early morning when the Government intend to make a statement. I may hear something tomorrow morning, but so far I know nothing about it.

Mr. Graham Brady: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Have you received any intimations from the Prime Minister of his intention to make a statement about his extraordinary decision to appoint the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the right hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson), as personal envoy representing him with Ministers from a foreign Government? Clearly, that raises constitutional concerns, particularly about accountability to the House. If you have received no such indication, may we have a debate on the matter at some point?

Madam Speaker: I am not in control of the business of the House and I have received no such intimation from the Prime Minister. However, I remind the hon. Gentleman that the Prime Minister answers questions for half an hour on Wednesdays and Back Benchers have an opportunity to question him then. If not, the Leader of the Opposition has ample opportunity to do so on that issue.

Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. As this is our first sitting after the Christmas recess, I wish to raise the matter of the resignation of the right hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson) from the Department of Trade and Industry. He resigned because he thought that he had


committed serious financial improprieties in relation to his building society, but a number of other issues arise. Have you been informed that a Minister will make a statement on whether the proper ministerial declarations were made? I know that this matter should be investigated by the Permanent Secretary of the Department concerned, and ultimately by the Cabinet Secretary, but it is of interest to the House and the public to know whether such an investigation will be carried out and, if so, whether the results will be publicised.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker: Does it relate?

Mr. Skinner: Yes, it does.
On the question of registration, before making any statement, or guiding anyone else to make one, would you, Madam Speaker, take note of the fact that the House decided, very solemnly, to ensure that every Member of Parliament who had outside interests entered those interests and made sure that the money that they obtained thereby—in bands of £5,000 and upwards—was in the register? Anyone looking at the register will find that at least 30 Tories, some of them Front Benchers, have refused to abide by the decision of the House. It is high time they were made to do so.

Madam Speaker: If any hon. Member wants to press this further there are two routes. One concerns the ministerial code of conduct—the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown), who raised the point of order, might want to raise that with the Prime Minister—and there is the Commissioner for Standards, if others are concerned about items not being registered.

Orders of the Day — Rating (Valuation) Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister for Local Government and Housing (Ms Hilary Armstrong): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I can assure you, Madam Speaker, that none of this has reached "Today" or anywhere else, but, none the less, hon. Members are leaving the Chamber. The Rating (Valuation) Bill is brief and aims to place the law on rating valuations of non-domestic property on a fair and equitable footing. It will ensure parity of treatment between ratepayers and make explicit the assumptions that underlie the valuations made for the 1990 and 1995 rating lists. It will also apply to future revaluations.
It might help hon. Members if I start by saying something about non-domestic rates. They are a tax on non-domestic property. Rates bills are calculated by multiplying the rateable value of a property by a poundage set annually by central Government. It is therefore essential that rateable values are assessed fairly. To ensure that rates bills are based on up-to-date values, a full revaluation exercise is carried out every five years. Revaluations are carried out on the basis of a common valuation date—for example, the revaluation in 1995 was based on rental values on 1 April 1993. They are also made on the basis of certain assumptions, one of which derives from long-standing case law dating from before the Local Government Finance Act 1988.
That case law required all valuations to be based on an assumed state of reasonable repair, and valuation officers have valued property on that basis since the introduction of national non-domestic rates following the 1988 Act. They have assumed that—other than in extreme cases, and whatever its actual condition at the valuation date—the property is, and remains, in a state of reasonable repair.
That is a fair and reasonable assumption to make. It has underpinned the rating valuations carried out by the Valuation Office for the 1990 and 1995 rating lists and informed the way in which thousands of appeals against those valuations have been decided. On 11 March 1998, however, in the case of Benjamin v. Anston Properties, the Lands Tribunal held that the valuer could not assume a state of reasonable repair, but that the valuation should instead reflect the actual condition of the property at the valuation date.
If left undisturbed, the tribunal's decision would lead to considerable unfairness in the way in which different businesses are assessed for rates. It would also cause severe practical difficulties with the administration of the system and risk significant loss of rate income.

Mr. Paul Burstow: Can the Minister give us some idea of the number of appeals that have been lodged as a result of the decision made on 11 March, in an attempt to gain benefit from that decision?

Ms Armstrong: When an appeal is lodged, it is impossible to know whether the appellant is basing that


appeal on a particular decision. Only when the appeal is heard is it possible to be confident about the nature of the appeal. I shall return to that point when I explain how the Government intend to implement the Bill.
There is an exception for repairs that would be uneconomic. In such cases, a valuation would be made on the basis that such repairs would not be made. In making his valuation, the valuation officer will, as he always has, take into account the age, location and type of property being valued in deciding what is a state of reasonable repair.
If the Bill were not enacted, the rating system would be unfair as between individual ratepayers, and much more difficult to administer. Let me deal first with the question of fairness. As I have said, unless there is a material change of circumstances, the value of non-domestic property on which the annual rate liability is based is assessed only once every five years. Fairness dictates that, at that time, two identical properties in the same location should be given the same rateable value, and hence should have the same rates liability over the following five years. However, two buildings, identical in every other respect, may, on the day on which they are assessed for rates, be in different states of repair. Indeed, it is almost certain that they will be. Most commercial property is let on the basis that the occupier will maintain the property in a reasonable condition.
As hon. Members know from their own domestic properties, all buildings need repairing simply to maintain their condition; but, as they will also know, the timing of repairs and the speed with which the works are done will depend on the individual decisions of the person occupying the property. It is likely, therefore—indeed, almost certain—that two identical properties in good repair on the day on which they were let to different tenants will be in more or less different states of repair on any particular day of the year, including the common date every five years on which the properties have their rateable values assessed for rating purposes.
That being so, if rateable values were based on the actual repair condition of a property on a single, arbitrarily chosen date, the two properties would not have identical rates bills. They would have different rates bills over that five-year period unless the rateable value was adjusted, perhaps daily, to reflect changes in the repair condition of the property. That brings me to the severe practical difficulties caused by the tribunal's decision.
First, the decision means that any ratepayer, the rateable value of whose property was based on the assumption of a condition of reasonable repair for either the 1990 or the 1995 revaluation—or, indeed, both—and who believed that his property was not in that condition, could make a proposal to change the valuations concerned. Any ratepayer can do that within a year of a decision in an appeal which he believes affects the value of his own property.
The tribunal's decision sets out an interpretation of the law that can be used as the basis for changing the rateable values of other properties. Such proposals would present enormous difficulties: they would be almost impossible to determine accurately, because of the likely absence of reliable evidence about the state of repair of the property on the common valuation date.
Secondly, the Valuation Office would face great difficulties with the forthcoming 2000 revaluation, work on which has already begun. For the 2000 revaluation, the valuation date is I April 1998. Much of the work constitutes a desk exercise conducted on the basis of forms of return, the valuation officer's knowledge and the evidence that he collects about local property market conditions. The assumption of a common standard of repair enables him to carry out his work in that way.
Physical i6nspections of properties are the exception and not the rule; but if the valuation officer must assess the actual condition of a property, it will6 involve the agency—potentially, at least—in inspecting every single one of 1.7 million hereditaments on the rating list in order to make that assessment, which simply cannot be done.

Mr. Burstow: Will the Minister clarify another point? As I have found in reading up on it, the subject is extremely complicated, involving many formidable terms that are often impenetrable because of the lack of plain English. An issue of case law has, however, been drawn to my attention. The 1937 Robinson Brothers v. Houghton and Chester-le-Street assessment committee judgment placed a duty on valuation officers to assess the rateable value of commercial premises, taking into account matters that would intrinsically affect it, both upwards and downwards. I understand that that duty still applies. Is the Minister saying that the Bill will effectively extinguish the precedent that was set back in 1937?

Ms Armstrong: Case law from 1937 has been built on and incorporated in successive legislation. The Bill will return the law to what it was assumed to be following the passage of the 1988 Act, and will therefore not disturb case law that was incorporated into the manner of dealing with things in those early days. It is because we now have a new case law that places a different interpretation on legislation that people thought was settled that we felt the need to present the Bill.
I was talking about the practical difficulties of implementing the law, as we would understand it, following a tribunal decision. The position would be very difficult, because every property would have to be inspected on a particular day, which would be impossible. Indeed, the position could be even worse: to ensure fairness to ratepayers, theoretically it would be necessary for the valuation officer to make regular and frequent inspections of every single property. Liability for non-domestic rates arises day by day on the value of a property for that day; when valuations change, the tax liability changes with them. As 1 have said, if we cannot assume a common state of repair for the five-year-period, in fairness the repair condition of the property would need to be continually reassessed. We could reasonably expect the ratepayer to inform the valuation officer when he believed that the value of his property had fallen following changes in the state of repair of that property; he might not be so forthcoming in reporting repairs that might increase its rateable value. It would, of course, be impracticable to resource the valuation officer, or local authorities, to enable them to carry out frequent and regular inspections of 1.7 million properties; but, in extreme circumstances, that would be required if rating lists were to reflect every property's actual condition throughout the five years of a list.
Therefore, the Bill is necessary to ensure fairness between ratepayers and to avoid administrative chaos. Unless we are also to upset the valuations carried out for both the 1990 and 1995 rating lists, it must apply retrospectively as well as to future revaluations.
However, we do not wish to deprive the ratepayer company in the Lands Tribunal case of the benefits of its successful appeal. That would not be right. Therefore, we have provided that the Bill's retrospective provisions will not apply to that case, or to any other where a proposal for an alteration of the rateable value shown in the rating list was made and not withdrawn or finally disposed of before 12 March, the day after the Lands Tribunal made its decision.
That perhaps goes somewhat wider than hon. Members might expect. It would certainly be fair to exclude from the Bill's retrospective provisions only those ratepayers who had appealed on the same basis as that in the Anston Properties case, and had not already had their appeal settled. However, it is simply not possible to distinguish fairly between appeals made on that basis and those made on other grounds. Therefore, we have decided that the retrospection should not apply to a property where the ratepayer made a proposal to alter the value on or before the date on which the Lands Tribunal made its decision.
The Bill amends the Local Government Finance Act 1988 to ensure that property in England or Wales that is subject to non-domestic rating is valued consistently, on the assumption that it is in a state of reasonable repair. That assumption will apply whatever the actual condition of the property, except in relation to repairs that it would be uneconomic for the landlord to carry out.
The Bill relates only to the specific assumption as to a property's state of repair and does not interfere with any other legislation in relation to valuation of non-domestic properties; that point may assist the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) following his intervention. It is a simple measure that ensures that rating valuations are made fairly and consistently for all ratepayers. I commend it to the House.

Mr. Simon Burns: The Minister said that the Bill is a simple measure. That will possibly be the understatement of the debate. I am sure that she would agree that it may be simple in some ways because of its shortness, but it is a highly technical and complicated measure, which has, I suspect, exercised the minds of civil service lawyers and professionals in the valuation sector over several months.
There are in the Bill several issues that I trust that the Minister can address; perhaps the junior Minister will do so when winding up. In particular, it is clear that several professional bodies have made representations to her Department disputing the Government's interpretation of the existing body of case law. The explanatory notes to the Bill present that as an anomaly in an otherwise clear field. Several professionals have approached the Opposition to say that they do not concur with that interpretation.
For example, the official submission from the Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation suggests that the ratepayer's success in the Benjamin v. Anston Properties Ltd. case was
widely anticipated throughout the profession".

Meanwhile, the Rating Surveyors Association states plainly that it does
not agree with the suggestion…that the Bill is 'restoring' the law to a previous position".
Clearly, there is a certain amount of confusion and doubt within the profession.
The argument centres around the status of the rebus sic stantibus rule—the idea that the rating value of a property should reflect its actual condition. That seems to be a clear enough guiding principle, but, needless to say, it is not as simple as that. The Bill seeks to ensure that, in future, rating valuations are arrived at on the basis that properties are in a "reasonable" condition. The Government claim that that reflects the method that was used for previous valuations, but, as I have said, there seems to be some dissent on that issue. We shall be looking hopefully for clarification from the Government on that point.
Naturally, the difference between a valuation on the basis of rebus sic stantibus and one that assumes a reasonable state of repair will, in some cases, lead to big variations in business rates. That has a particularly large impact on small businesses, especially in generally rundown areas. It is important that the Bill does not do lasting damage to small and medium enterprises, and imperative that it does not hinder attempts at economic regeneration in some of our most deprived areas.
It will not, I am sure, have entirely escaped the House's attention that the effect of assuming a "reasonable" state of repair, rather than an actual one, will almost certainly be to enhance the tax base available for the purpose of non-domestic rating. The question remains as to whether it provides a basis for fair business taxation. The drafting of the Bill leaves that open to doubt, but I should be more than grateful if the Minister wanted to intervene to clarify that point.

Ms Armstrong: As the hon. Gentleman says, there is some dispute among the professions. They are suggesting that the Bill goes further than we are suggesting; that is the area to which the hon. Gentleman alludes. I do not agree with that. Obviously, I am not qualified to say what valuers believed or did not believe the 1988 Act to mean, but the leading authority on rating, the book "Ryde on Rating and the Council Tax" clearly says that properties should be valued on a common repair assumption.
It may help the hon. Gentleman if I quote from the current edition, which says:
The rule that the hereditament must be valued in its existing physical state does not apply to defects which are due to ordinary lack of repair. The cases in which this exception to the rebus sic stantibus rule has been established and applied arose largely in the context of the definition of 'gross value' under previous legislation, in which the burden of repair was placed by statute upon the hypothetical landlord. Nevertheless, it is submitted that the principles established are equally applicable when, as now, the obligation to repair falls upon the tenant.
It was on that basis that we introduced the legislation. The case this time was that, because the basis had changed from the landlord to the tenant, that meant that the whole basis of assumptions had changed. We are saying that that was not the intention. Indeed, the major book and guide on the issue affirms that.

Mr. Burns: I thank the Minister for what was clearly a helpful intervention. I do not want to be churlish or to start quibbling, and I appreciate the time that she took to


seek to clear up the matter. Obviously, we shall have an opportunity at a later stage to come back to the matter if the situation and issue merit it, but there is a further concern among professionals, which it is important to put on the record—the question of the word "reasonable".
As the IRRV points out in its submission to the Department, although there are guidelines contained in the explanatory notes, those have no force in law. The Bill itself is silent on that issue. The concern is that the Bill will have the opposite effect to that intended. Clearly, it has been introduced to clear up what the Government see as a potential problem in the shape of the Benjamin v. Anston case. The Government are worried that that will lead to further litigation along those lines, and see the Bill, not unreasonably, as a way of preventing that. However, in addition to the professions' concerns about the rebus sic stantibus rule, both the IRRV and the RSA have expressed serious concern that the Bill's drafting will lead to more, not less, litigation, because of the uncertainties surrounding the introduction of the assumption of a reasonable state of repair, especially in relation to the use of the term "reasonable".
Ministers may want to return to that matter at a later stage, but I hope that they will appreciate the professional bodies' concerns.

Ms Armstrong: Clearly, we have to discuss the issue. It is the Government's intention to make it clearer, especially for the ratepayer, precisely on what basis rates are to be paid, and to produce a workable system. I appreciate the fact that hon. Members will want to discuss what we mean by "reasonable", and I would consider that a valid subject for discussion in Committee.

Mr. Burns: To continue our bipartisan approach, I thank the Minister for making that point. She is absolutely right, and we will certainly want to raise the issue in Committee and hear more about the Government's view and the way in which they intend to ensure that the legislation does not create problems that they have not so far anticipated.
Conservative Members want the Bill to provide a fair and clear basis for the levying of business rates, and I am sure that the Government would agree with us. We have some doubts whether the Bill as drafted will achieve that aim. We do not oppose the Bill and we understand why the Government felt that they had to act, but, as a responsible Opposition, we want to work with them to iron out any possible flaws that could render the operation of the legislation unfair or unworkable and could achieve the exact opposite of what was intended.
I shall certainly not ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to force a Division on a Bill that is needed in the light of certain events.

Mr. David Borrow: I declare a non-pecuniary interest as a member of the Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation of more than 20 years' standing, and an honorary member of the Society of Clerks of Valuation Tribunals.
The legislation is necessary and sets down in law what was always assumed to be the situation. Under previous legislation, it was always assumed that the repair liability existed when a valuation took place. Valuation related directly to rateable value was made on the assumption that the tenant would keep the property in a good state of repair.
The Bill places responsibility for repair on the landlord before occupation of a property—that is sensible and straightforward, but it introduces a new concept to statute by making the assumption that, when it is uneconomic to return a dilapidated property to a good state of repair, the valuation will be based on the unrepaired property, rebus sic stantibus.
The origins of rating go back to the poor relief laws of 1601, and a whole series of case law has developed valuation for rating. In this century, we have for the first time arrived at a system whereby valuations are made on the assumption that the property is not in a good state of repair. Many of the initial cases involved something exceptional about the property—often structural repairs, subsidence or some other major defect affecting rental values—that meant that the cost of repair would be disproportionate to the additional rental value that it would create.
The Bill's wording may lead such cases to involve not only properties with major structural defects, but ones that have simply not been kept in good repair. The property in the Benjamin v. Anston Properties Ltd. case, which was in Brighton, became unoccupied in the late 1980s, largely for economic reasons, and fell into disrepair. It is my understanding that there were no major structural problems.
There are problems associated with properties in certain age groups or areas when they have fallen into disrepair. There was an interesting article by Tom Dixon in the IRRV journal, referring to the problems of the empty property rate and the fact that there was a disincentive to repair such properties. I am sure that the provisions will be used extensively to avoid paying rates.
There is a problem in that many properties have leases of 14 or 21 years, with upward-only rent reviews. When properties become less desirable or popular, tenants cannot bring about a rent reduction. That was never a problem when there was rapid inflation but, over the past 10 years, certain classes of properties have had minimal changes in cash rental values and, with upward-only rent reviews, tenants are trapped into paying more than the market rent.
That is an incentive for the tenants not to fulfil their obligation to keep the property in a good state of repair, and they may pass on the lease to sub-lessees to avoid their responsibilities. There is a danger that properties that could be put into a good state of repair and let at a realistic rent will be left in disrepair because of the effect of upward-only rent reviews and the fact that rates are based on rental values that are themselves tied to such reviews. The rates may be excessive, because there is no downward review for most commercial rents.
Should Government managers give me the opportunity, I look forward to exploring more extensively in Committee some of the points that have been made by professionals.

Mr. Paul Burstow: The hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr. Borrow) has done an excellent job in the cause of seeking a place on the Committee. Other hon. Members have ably demonstrated how confusing and complicated the matter is; I say not that they have confused us, but that the subject matter is confusing.
We could be forgiven for thinking that the Bill is non-controversial and that it will simply ensure that the law is as everyone had understood it to be and as Parliament had intended it to be. The Bill should therefore be only a technical matter that should not long be delayed in its passage. However, I should say that, in trying to get to grips with the issues raised in the Bill, and the case law that has already been mentioned in the debate, I found the matter to be quite challenging. Some formidable terminology is used, and plain English is absent.
My understanding is that the impetus for the Bill's passage started with the March 1998 Lands Tribunal decision in the case known as Benjamin v. Anston Properties Ltd., which seems to have boiled down to an argument of administrative convenience versus some long-established principles underpinning the way in which the rateable value of business premises has been determined.
Under current law, all non-domestic properties must be assessed individually. However, as the Minister told us earlier, that is largely a desk-top exercise and, in practice, similar properties are considered to obtain an average level of rental value for those properties. I have been told by those in the profession that the tone of the rating list is determined in that manner—by reference to types of properties.
Properties of the same type—shops, for example—in a specific location will therefore have a similar value. Subsequently—at least until now—the rating list has been susceptible to further refinement through the appeal process and by reference to differences between properties materially affecting their value. The principle that a property should be valued as it is in fact was clearly stated in case law as long ago as 1937, in Robinson Brothers v. Houghton and Chester le Street assessment committee. Moreover, the precedent established in that case had been established in previous law.
In Robinson Brothers, it was made clear that, in weighing up the evidence bearing upon value, the valuer has a duty to take into consideration every intrinsic quality and intrinsic circumstance that tends to push the rental value either up or down. The proposition is known as rebus sic stantibus and goes to the heart of the valuation system. I think that the Bill, at the very least, weakens that basic proposition of the valuation system. Moreover, as drafted the Bill would make it possible for the proposition to be abandoned entirely.
It has been argued by the Minister, and in consultations between the various professional institutes and officials in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, that the rebus rule does not apply to repairs, and that is what the Anston case was all about. However, studies of the textbooks have shown that the law on the matter is somewhat vague because, until now, the proposition that rebus does not apply to repairs has been made in the context of valuations made on gross values. That is not the situation that we are debating today.
I have been informed by the various professional interests in the matter that the decision in the Anston case came as no surprise to them. In their view, the decision simply confirmed what was already generally understood to be established practice and precedent. The valuation officer in the Anston case argued that all economically feasible repairs had been performed prior to the hypothetical letting.
I should say that the issue in the Anston case was that the previous tenants had left the premises in a rather bad state of repair, and that the rateable value in the 1990 list was £272,000. However, it was agreed in the tribunal hearing that, on the material day, repairs would have cost at least £300,000.
The Lands Tribunal president, Judge Marder, described the proposition made by counsel for the Valuation Office—that a semi-derelict property should be valued on the basis that it might reasonably be expected to be let at full value—as extending the meaning of
'reasonably' to an unreasonable degree".
We shall undoubtedly return later to that issue, as the Bill will provide new opportunities to explore what is meant by "reasonable". We should be concerned about the definition, which certainly the profession believes could lead to more rather than fewer cases.
As the Local Government Finance Act 1988 placed the obligation of repair on the hypothetical tenant, surely it is unreasonable to assume that a tenant would take a property in substantial disrepair and expend large sums on it simply to increase his rent liability. Counsel for the Valuation Office made it clear that the effects of its success in the appeal would have been to make it easier to administer the valuation process. In other words, it was an argument as much about ease of administration as about equity and fairness in how the system was being applied to individual businesses.
The Valuation Office argued that the Anston decision would open the floodgates on appeals. Where are those appeals? I asked the Minister earlier whether statistics on such appeals were available, but was told that statistics are not gathered in that manner. My understanding is that a floodtide of appeals has not been unleashed because of the Anston decision.
The profession believes that the measures proposed in the Bill are an overreaction to an imagined problem. That was the view also of the judge in the case. Moreover, the consequences of passing the Bill unamended would be not only to reduce the legitimate grounds on which valuation appeals are heard, but to open up a can of worms of the definition of "repairs", "reasonable" and "uneconomic".
I should give an example of how the Bill would work in practice. The Government have said many times that they support traditional high streets and want to help the regeneration of our inner cities. However, if the Bill's provisions were to be applied strictly, retailers trading on the edge of profitability in less attractive or tired and run down locations could be driven out of business.

Ms Armstrong: I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I should not like hon. Members to go away with the impression that, currently or historically, properties have been assessed as he is implying. The Bill's main thrust is simply to enshrine what valuation officers have assumed in valuing properties. Valuers outside the Valuation Office may not see the matter in that light, but


I assure the hon. Gentleman that valuation officers have made those assumptions in their work. That is why the example that he is dealing with is painting an incorrect picture.

Mr. Burstow: I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying that point. It is probably an issue to which we shall wish to return, perhaps after tabling amendments to the Bill. The profession certainly feels that the principle and precedent are sufficiently unclear. The Lands Tribunal decision in the Anston case deals in some detail with how the judge in the case believed the system worked. Perhaps the Minister will say in his reply whether the Government and officials believe that the judge was misdirecting himself in that respect and was describing a system that did not match the actual system. I should certainly be interested to know whether it was felt that the judgment was defective in that sense. I have seen nothing in the Bill's explanatory notes or heard anything in the debate to show that there is such a belief.
If my contention holds—although I understand that the Minister does not accept it—it would have a significant impact on retail situations in more marginal retail locations. We therefore remain concerned about the Bill and its consequences. The logical conclusion of my argument is that the system, if it were made more uniform and easier to administer for the Valuation Office, could have the effect of hastening the run down of inner-city shopping parades.
Another consequence of the Bill as it is drafted is that the system would not be able to recognise the effect of natural disasters that result in temporary disrepair. Therefore, damage done by fire, flood, storm or some other natural disaster would not result in a lower rateable value. If the Bill had been law at the time of the floods in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch), businesses in Ross-on-Wye would have received no relief through the rating system. I hope that the Minister will confirm when he winds up that the Government will give further consideration to that issue to give some comfort to those who fear the loss of such relief.
I understand that, since the announcement in a written answer in July 1998 that the Government intended to legislate, little consultation with the valuation profession or with business has been undertaken. Indeed, the first time that the Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation learned of the Government's intentions was when the Bill was published in November. On what is supposed to be a non-controversial, technical matter, it is surprising that the Government did not provide an opportunity for dialogue to avoid the concerns that are now being brought to the attention of hon. Members and aired in the House tonight.
The Bill contains flaws and it undermines important principles that underpin our rating system. As a consequence, it is not friendly to business. It will make the system less fair and less responsive. It allows for a significant dumbing down of the valuation system at the expense of business. The Bill will make the system simpler for valuation offices to administer by imposing an unreal uniformity on a system that is meant to reflect the operation of market forces. It may reduce the level of leakage resulting from valuation appeals and increase the level of certainty about business rate income. One can

understand that the Treasury might wish to have more certainty when forecasting the income from business rates, but that should not necessarily be the objective of a rating system that is meant to apply fairly to all businesses.
The Bill breaches the principle that the law is intended to deal with future acts and should not attempt retrospectively to change matters that have been concluded in good faith on the basis of existing law. We believe that the Bill should not receive a Second Reading. We accept that it probably will, and therefore, in Committee, we will probe the Government further and improve the legislation to achieve the best outcome for all concerned.

Mr. Adrian Sanders: Given the fact that hon. Members were outnumbered by the number of civil servants in the corner at the beginning of the debate, it is obvious that the Bill is anything but simple. It secures that the assumptions on which the 1990 and 1995 rating lists were compiled will continue to apply, and provides for subsequent rating lists to be compiled on the same basis. That seems reasonable enough and the Bill appears to be a minor, technical Bill, affecting the valuation of non-domestic properties for rating purposes only. It was published on 27 November, but was not in the Queen's Speech. It is only two pages long, it is non-contentious and it is unlikely to be opposed by the official Opposition. Indeed, one would not expect the official Opposition to oppose a Bill that merely corrects their legislation when in government.
The need for the Bill arose when a Lands Tribunal ruling, referred to earlier as the Benjamin v. Anston Properties case, apparently went against what was thought to be the rule that a property should be valued as though it were in reasonable repair. That is rightly to deter owners from constructive vandalism or neglect, which is a common phenomenon when an owner wants to redevelop a site and speed up the departure of existing tenants. Under that rule, a reduction in rateable value of a property and in rates payable on it is prevented, and the owner's neglect results in no reduced rate bill.
The Bill will be backdated to 1990, but not if a property's valuation list entry has been amended between then and l I March 1998. With a full revaluation for the uniform business rate in progress and due to take effect in 2000, the impact on rates payable thereafter will be considerable. The biggest effect will be on blighted urban areas where benign neglect is most common.
The problem with the UBR is that rating properties on an annual rental value taxes enterprise. It hits small local firms much harder than large ones, because small businesses have more of their assets tied up in stock, turnover and wages, whereas big firms can afford to trade at a loss for long periods. The rating system is just one part of a casino economic system that benefits investors and speculators at the expense of enterprise and labour. While traders on the high street pay rates, landowners pay nothing. The community's wealth comes from the efforts of enterprising businesses, not from the risk-free ownership of land. By leaving a site empty, the owner cuts the footfall in all nearby businesses.
Who pays? Not the landowner. The chances are that he or she lives hundreds of miles away. Meanwhile, local businesses carry on paying high rates based on pre-slump values, leading to more business failures, more dereliction, and less footfall. It happens in even the most prosperous towns in Britain. Everybody except the landowners and banks suffers. The Government lose revenue, communities lose jobs, the least mobile residents lose accessible town centre shops, councils find it difficult to revive towns and have to cope with dereliction. The most enterprising people who make our towns live—the local businesses and traders—pay a rate that is an unfair burden that gets more unfair every year.
None of us likes waste, so why not tax it? We want more local jobs, enterprise and trade, so why tax the people who provide them? Why encourage land speculation? Why penalise those who improve their property? We are pledged to shift the burden of tax away from jobs and enterprise on to pollution and resource consumption. One aspect of that is site value rating as an alternative to the uniform business rate. Or in other words—tax what we disapprove of, not what we approve.
The Bill has two problems. The first is the escape clause whereby any repairs that a reasonable landlord would consider uneconomic are excluded from the definition of reasonable repair. In other words, if the neglect is great enough, the owner can get away with it. If the staircase or roof were removed, making the property unusable, no rates would be payable. Merely getting behind with the decorations or clearing the gutters would mean that the owner had to pay the same rates as a model owner. That cannot be fair.
Secondly, why should the tenant pay for the owner's faults? If an owner fails to maintain a property, assuming that it is not let on a repairing lease, the tenant would pay the higher bills that would result from the new basis for valuation. Perversely, the Bill could result in faster dereliction of properties and areas as businesses pay more rates on the good repair assumption while the owners do not have to do the repairs that were the basis of the valuations. It is almost a charter for bad landlords. I shall be interested in the Minister's response—and I have noticed that he has been handed various pieces of paper, which will probably make his life more difficult.

Ms Armstrong: rose—

Mr. Sanders: I shall give way briefly because I have almost concluded my remarks.

Ms Armstrong: The hon. Gentleman's points are not legitimate in relation to the Bill. His objection that the tenant and not the landlord will have responsibility would have been made during the passage of the Local Government Finance Act 1988. We do not seek to change the basis of that Bill, so we cannot deal with that issue in this Bill.

Mr. Sanders: We shall test that point in Committee, as the Minister's remarks do not fit with my reading of the Bill. Clearly, the Bill says that if the owner fails to maintain a property, the tenant pays the higher bill under the new valuation. There is also an escape clause, which will cause a problem with the definition of "reasonable". We have had no true, concise definition that will make matters fair for those who must pay the uniform business rate.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Alan Meale): As my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Housing said earlier, the Rating (Valuation) Bill is a short Bill to ensure that, in valuing a property for rating purposes, the property is assumed to be in a state of reasonable repair. That assumption will apply whatever the actual condition of the property, except in relation to repairs that would be uneconomic. The Bill puts the law on rating valuations on a fair and equitable footing while also making clear the assumptions that underlie the valuations made for both the 1990 and 1995 rating lists, and for future valuations.
Opposition Members have asked about the implications for ratepayers. In practice, most ratepayers will see no change as a result of the Bill. Valuations of non-domestic property carried out by the Valuation Office agency are already based on the assumption that a property is in a state of reasonable repair, unless the disrepair is such that it would be uneconomic to remedy it. In such cases, the repair is assumed not to have been made, and the rateable value is adjusted downwards appropriately. As my hon. Friend also said, the Bill simply codifies those principles, ensuring that they will be applied consistently in future.
The position of derelict property will remain the same as it was previously. If it is incapable of being let in that state, it will attract no value. In other circumstances, the valuer will assume a state of reasonable repair when valuing a property, taking account of its age and location. If the property is run down because it is near the end of its useful life, or if it is in a rundown area, those facts will be reflected in the assumption about its reasonable state of repair.

Mr. Sanders: Surely that is the whole failing of the uniform business rate system. Why have not the Government introduced a Bill that would address that point?

Mr. Meale: If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, he may find out.
If a property is in need of repair to bring it up to a reasonable state, the cost of repairs will be taken into account. If the costs are such that a landlord cannot hope to recover them from the rent that he could reasonably expect to receive for a property given its age and location, he will be assumed not to make the repairs. The rateable value of the property in that case will be lower, reflecting its unrepaired state.
Retrospection has also been raised. I am obliged to advise the House that property has already been assessed on the basis of an assumed state of repair in both the 1990 and 1995 revaluations. If the Bill did not apply retrospectively, all previous rateable values would be brought into question. In such circumstances, it would be a physical impossibility for valuation officers to reassess in 1999 the repair condition of 1.7 million properties on each day since 1990.
My hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Housing has pointed out that the Bill contains safeguards for the ratepayer in the case of Benjamin v. Anston Properties Ltd, and for others who lodged proposals to change their rateable values before the date on which the tribunal decision was made. In recognition of the fact that


such ratepayers might have sought to argue on the same basis as the ratepayers in the Anston Properties case, the Bill ensures that retrospection will not apply to any ratepayer whose appeal had not been finally dealt with by that date. Those ratepayers, and the ratepayer in the Anston case, will effectively enjoy the fruits of their litigation in respect of the 1990 and 1995 lists.
I am not aware of any appeal having been levied since the date of our announcement in July. On whether retrospection should apply only to appeals lodged before the date of that ministerial announcement, I must say that that would be illogical. The Bill protects anyone who made a proposal before he or she knew the judgment in the Anston case and who had not settled his or her appeal by that date. It may be argued that such ratepayers might, quite independently, have interpreted the law in the same way as the Anston ratepayer, and, ultimately, the courts. As such, they should not be denied the fruits of their litigation.
Any ratepayers who had not made a proposal by the date of the Anston decision had presumably not done so because they were happy with their rateable value and the way in which it had been calculated. To allow such ratepayers to avoid the effects of retrospection if they managed to enter a proposal between the dates of the Anston decision and the Government's announcement of legislation would simply benefit those who were quickest off the mark, and that would be unsatisfactory and unfair.
Questions have been raised as to whether the Bill would conflict with certain European conventions. We are satisfied that it does not. We made an early announcement on 29 July of our intention to legislate. We have ensured that the Bill does not deprive the appellant property owner of the fruits of his litigation, and that the Bill is not unfair to other property owners who had already commenced proceedings. The retrospective effect of the Bill does not affect the ratepayer in the appeal, or any other ratepayer who, on or before the date of the decision on the appeal, had made a proposal for alteration of the rating list which was not disposed of before that date.
Hon. Members must realise the possible financial consequences if the Bill is not enacted, asking, for example, how many appeals might be made if it is not. As my hon. Friend has said, appeals could be lodged against any of the 1.7 million rateable values in each of the 1990 and 1995 rating lists on the back of the Anston case decision. It is impossible to say how many additional appeals might be generated if the decision was not reversed, but the figure could be 1.7 million.
We have conservatively estimated that there might be as many as 250,000 properties in a sufficient state of disrepair to encourage owners to appeal. Even using that estimate, it is impossible to gauge the degree of the financial implications, but we might be considering a loss of up to £7 billion over the nine years since 1990, or in the worst case scenario, up to £49 billion if all 1.7 million properties are taken into account. Hon. Members should treat the matter seriously, realising that a reduction of even just 1 per cent. in rateable values would lead to losses from the non-domestic rating pool of some £140 million in 1998–99 alone.
Hon. Members have inquired about how the Bill affects property maintained in a better-than-average state of repair, asking whether rateable values would be adjusted accordingly. The answer is straightforward: the rateable value of a property will depend on the facts of its case. In principle, however, where premises have been maintained to a higher standard of repair than in other similar properties of their age or in the same area, the higher standards should be disregarded when assessing the property's rateable value.
Similarly, if a fire, for example, were to leave a property incapable of beneficial occupation, the property would be removed from the rating lists, and no rates would be payable until it was repaired. If, however, the fire's effect left the property lettable, disrepair resulting from the fire would be disregarded. In cases in which damage is relatively minor and a property is not rendered incapable of beneficial occupation, the valuation officers should make a valuation on the basis of a state of reasonable repair, except where it would be uneconomic to carry out a particular repair. Where repairs are being carried out, and are clearly economic, they should, quite rightly, be reflected in any valuation.
Some Opposition Members asked whether the Bill would simply increase litigation. We do not believe so. There is considerable case law, in the context of both rating and of landlord and tenant law, on when works to a building comprise a repair, a renovation or an improvement. The precise nature of what is a reasonable state of repair will reflect the facts in each case, but I recognise that Opposition Members have signalled that they will revisit the issue in Committee. We look forward to that debate.
The Opposition suggested that the Bill radically changes the law. We do not believe so. We cannot answer for what valuers believed, but valuation officers have since 1990 valued property on the assumption that it is in a reasonable state of repair. That assumption underlies the values that appear in both the 1990 and 1995 rating lists. Moreover, it is the only practical means of ensuring that ratepayers are treated fairly as regards their rate bills over a five-year period.
The Bill is a worthwhile and necessary measure. It is consistent with good administration and, above all, it will ensure fair treatment and a fair tax assessment for all ratepayers. I commend it to the House.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 268, Noes 30.

Division No. 29]
[6.51 pm


AYES


Ainger, Nick
Bennett, Andrew F


Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'ty NE)
Benton, Joe


Allen, Graham
Bermingham, Gerald


Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)
Berry, Roger


Armstrong, Ms Hilary
Best, Harold


Atherton, Ms Candy
Betts, Clive


Austin, John
Blears, Ms Hazel


Banks, Tony
Borrow, David


Barnes, Harry
Bradley, Keith (Withington)


Barron, Kevin
Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)


Battle, John
Brinton, Mrs Helen


Bayley, Hugh
Brown, Russell (Dumfries)


Beard, Nigel
Browne, Desmond


Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret
Buck, Ms Karen






Burden, Richard
Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)


Burgon, Colin
Hanson, David


Butler, Mrs Christine
Heal, Mrs Sylvia


Cabom, Richard
Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)


Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)
Hepburn, Stephen


Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)
Heppell, John


Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)
Hewitt, Ms Patricia


Campbell—Savours, Dale
Hill, Keith


Caplin, Ivor
Hinchliffe, David


Caton. Martin
Hodge, Ms Margaret


Chisholm, Malcolm
Home Robertson, John


Clapham, Michael
Hoon, Geoffrey


Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)
Hope, Phil


Clark, Paul (Gillingham)
Hopkins, Kelvin


Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)
Howarth, George (Knowsley N)


Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)
Hoyle, Lindsay


Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)
Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)


Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)
Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)


Clelland, David
Humble, Mrs Joan


Clwyd, Ann
Hurst, Alan


Coaker, Vernon
Hutton, John


Coffey. Ms Ann
Iddon, Dr Brian


Cohen, Harry
Illsley, Eric


Coleman, Iain
Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)


Colman, Tony
Jamieson, David


Cooper, Yvette
Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)


Corbett, Robin
Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)


Corston, Ms Jean
Jones, Helen (Warrington N)


Crausby, David
Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)


Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)
Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)


Cryer, John (Hornchurch)
Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)


Cummings, John
Jowell, Ms Tessa


Cunliffe, Lawrence
Keeble, Ms Sally


Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)
Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)


Curtis—Thomas, Mrs Claire
Kelly, Ms Ruth


Dalyell, Tam
Kemp, Fraser


Darling, Rt Hon Alistair
Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)


Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)
Khabra, Piara S


Dawson, Hilton
Kidney, David


Dean, Mrs Janet
King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)


Denham, John
King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)


Dismore, Andrew
Kingham, Ms Tess


Dobbin, Jim
Kumar, Dr Ashok


Dobson, Rt Hon Frank
Ladyman, Dr Stephen


Donohoe, Brian H
Lawrence, Ms Jackie


Doran, Frank
Laxton, Bob


Dowd, Jim
Lepper, David


Drown, Ms Julia
Leslie, Christopher


Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
Levitt, Tom


Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)
Lewis, Terry (Worsley)


Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)
Lock, David


Edwards, Huw
Love, Andrew


Efford, Clive
McAllion, John


Ennis, Jeff
McAvoy, Thomas


Etherington, Bill
McCabe, Steve


Field, Rt Hon Frank
McCafferty, Ms Chris


Fisher, Mark
McGuire, Mrs Anne


Fitzpatrick, Jim
McIsaac, Shona


Flint, Caroline
Mackinlay, Andrew


Flynn, Paul
McNulty, Tony


Foster, Rt Hon Derek
Mactaggart, Fiona


Fyfe, Maria
McWalter, Tony


Galloway, George
Mallaber, Judy


Gardiner, Barry
Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)



George, Bruce (Walsall S)
Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)


Gibson, Dr Ian
Martlew, Eric


Gilroy, Mrs Linda
Meacher, Rt Hon Michael


Goggins, Paul
Meale, Alan


Gordon, Mrs Eileen
Merron, Gillian


Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)
Michie, Bill (Shef'id Heeley)


Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)
Milburn, Alan


Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
Miller, Andrew


Grocott, Bruce
Moffatt, Laura


Grogan, John
Moonie, Dr Lewis


Hall, Patrick (Bedford)
Moran, Ms Margaret





Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)
Spellar, John


Mullin, Chris
Squire, Ms Rachel


Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)
Starkey, Dr Phyllis


Naysmith, Dr Doug
Steinberg, Gerry


O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)
Stevenson, George


O'Hara, Eddie
Stewart, Ian (Eccles)


Olner, Bill
Stinchcombe, Paul


O'Neill, Martin
Stoate, Dr Howard


Palmer, Dr Nick
Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin


Pearson, Ian
Stringer, Graham


Perham, Ms Linda
Stuart, Ms Gisela


Pickthall, Colin Pike, Peter L
Sutcliffe, Gerry


Plaskitt, James
Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)


Powell, Sir Raymond
Taylor, Ms Dart (Stockton S)


Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)
Taylor, David (NW Leics)


Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)
Temple-Morris, Peter


Prescott, Rt Hon John
Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)


Primarolo, Dawn
Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)


Prosser, Gwyn
Timms, Stephen


Purchase, Ken
Tipping, Paddy


Quinn, Lawrie
Todd, Mark


Radice, Giles
Touhig, Don


Rammell, Bill
Trickett, Jon


Rapson, Syd
Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)


Raynsford, Nick
Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)


Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)
Twigg, Derek (Halton)


Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)
Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)


Roche, Mrs Barbara
Vaz, Keith


Rooker, Jeff
Watts, David


Rooney, Terry
White, Brian


Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)
Whitehead, Dr Alan


Rowlands, Ted
Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)


Ruane, Chris
Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)


Ruddock, Ms Joan
Wills, Michael


Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)
Winnick, David


Ryan, Ms Joan
Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)


Salter, Martin
Wise, Audrey


Savidge, Malcolm
Wood, Mike


Sawford, Phil
Woolas, Phil


Sedgemore, Brian
Worthington, Tony


Shipley, Ms Debra
Wray, James


Skinner, Dennis
Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)


Smith, Angela (Basildon)



Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)
Tellers for the Ayes:


Smith, John (Glamorgan)
Mr. Greg Pope and


Soley, Clive
Mr. Mike Hall.


Noes


Allan, Richard
Kirkwood, Archy


Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy
Livsey, Richard


Baker, Norman
Llwyd, Effyn


Beith, Rt Hon A J
Öpik, Lembit


Brand, Dr Peter
Rendel, David


Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)
Russell, Bob (Colchester)


Burnett, John
Sanders, Adrian


Chidgey, David
Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns)


Cotter, Brian
Stunell, Andrew


Davey, Edward (Kingston)
Taylor, Matthew (Truro)


George, Andrew (St Ives)
Tonge, Dr Jenny


Gome, Donald
Webb, Steve


Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)
Willis, Phil


Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)



Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)
Tellers for the Noes:


Keetch, Paul
Mr. Paul Tyler and


Kennedy, Charles (Ross Skye)
Mr. Paul Burstow.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of Bills).

Orders of the Day — RATING (VALUATION) BILL [MONEY]

Queen's recommendation having been signified—

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Rating (Valuation) Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums so payable under any other Act.—[Mr. Betts.]

Question agreed to.

Orders of the Day — RATING (VALUATION) BILL [WAYS AND MEANS]

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a),
That any Act resulting from the Rating (Valuation) Bill may impose liability to non-domestic rates by provision about the valuation of hereditaments.—[Mr. Betts.]

Question agreed to.

Orders of the Day — DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): With permission, I shall put together the motions relating to delegated legislation.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Orders of the Day — TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (SCOTLAND) (S.I., 1998, No. 2913)

That the Town and Country Planning (Minerals) (Scotland) Regulations 1998 (S.I., 1998, No. 2913), dated 17th November 1998, a copy of which was laid before this House on 25th November, be approved.

That the Town and Country Planning (Compensation for Restrictions on Mineral Working and Mineral Waste Depositing) (Scotland) Regulations 1998 (S.I., 1998, No. 2914), dated 17th November 1998, a copy of which was laid before this House on 25th November, be approved.—[Mr. Betts.]

Question agreed to.

Orders of the Day — EUROPEAN SCRUTINY COMMITTEE

Ordered,
That Mr. Quentin Davies be discharged from the European Scrutiny Committee and Mr. Robert Walter be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Betts.]

Orders of the Day — School Governing Bodies

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Betts.]

Mr. David Taylor: As a parent of four daughters in full-time education and as one who was once employed in the profession, it has been a pleasure and a privilege for me to be a member of school governing bodies in north-west Leicestershire for more than 20 years. However, there is no comparison between those early years as a governor and now, and nor would I ever want to return to them. The role of governing bodies has changed completely following the implementation of local management of schools introduced by the Education Reform Act 1988. Every survey of governors since then has revealed the great time commitment that the job now involves and has referred to the paper mountain from central and local government and from the schools themselves.
I am delighted that the Minister for School Standards, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms Morris), is replying to the debate. Since her election to the House, she has used her 18 years as a teaching professional to excellent effect and she is widely respected in the world of education. She knows only too well the impact on governors of the huge changes in the culture of education during the past decade or so.
In the debate on the education White Paper, my hon. Friend said:
We recognise the important role of governors… I am afraid that we have put a further burden on them… When the relationship between the governing body and the school is right, it is a tower of strength for the good of the children. When it is not right and when governors feel that they are burdened down with paperwork, it is a matter for concern."—[Official Report, 18 July 1997; Vol. 298, c. 656.]
In my visits last year to all schools in north-west Leicestershire, it was clear to me that the Government have every right to be concerned. The chairs of governors of those schools—mainly village primaries—often said that they were drowning in a sea of paper. I requested this debate in an attempt to raise the profile of the issues.
Nationally, there are more than 300,000 governors and they are a huge and valuable resource. However, there is a risk that, as unpaid volunteers, they are being taken for granted and overwhelmed by consultation papers and new duties. Members of all governing bodies are increasingly concerned about the layer upon layer of additional responsibility and work that is being placed upon lay governors. Governors are unpaid volunteers: although they can reclaim expenses for expenditure incurred on behalf of the school, few do so because they are concerned about additional costs on already stretched school budgets. It might seem surprising, but many new governors are still not aware of the commitment and responsibilities that come with being a governor, while more experienced governors feel that they cannot commit more and more time to doing justice to their role. Recently, there has been a much higher turnover of governors in my part of the world, and we are not unique.
The issue is not merely the call on the time of governors—time which so far has been willingly and freely given: there is an enormous information overload.


The continuing inflow of documents for the attention of chairs and members of governing bodies is reaching alarming proportions and is a disincentive for people either to take on, or to continue with, the role of governor. A cursory glance at the commitments for school responses in Leicestershire last term, and for some due early in the current term, reveals eight major consultations by the local education authority: on educational development, lifelong learning, behaviour support, nutritional standards for school meals, fair funding, key stage 1 class sizes, the new deal for schools and early-years child care. Soon, the LEA will be required to hold consultations on asset management, youth work, school organisation, special educational needs provision, youth and community education review, fair funding from April 2000 and the LEA Ofsted action plan. The Minister will appreciate what a daunting agenda that is for governing bodies and head teachers.
I do not criticise the LEAs; they are carrying out statutory responsibilities to consult and would be acting illegally if they did not do so. Central support staff in local authorities are as overwhelmed by those requirements as are governors and school staff. However, at the rate that we are going, something will have to give.
I have referred to the particular pressures of time and to the immense information overload for governors. I now turn to the issue of responsibilities. The increased responsibility in many areas requires a range and level of professionalism and expertise that few lay individuals can reasonably be expected to have. However, what is frequently demanded of governors, especially those who are chairs of governing bodies, now includes the setting of staff pay and conditions, professional development interviews and appraisal of head teachers, and, most importantly, the health and safety legal requirements. Following the delegation of health and safety issues to schools, governors have a corporate responsibility for health and safety regulation and non-compliance might constitute a criminal act that can carry severe penalties.
I have always supported increased freedom for governors in relation to schools and recognise that it brings increased responsibility. I believe that most governors are content to accept that responsibility. However, they are volunteers and they require training and support. Local education authorities are under a specific duty to provide governor training. In Leicestershire, that is very well handled within the limited resources available, but that is not necessarily the case elsewhere. One of the difficulties in providing up-to-date and effective training and support is that guidance material on recent educational initiatives is not as full or as available as would be ideal, nor are the resources typically available to LEAs for such matters anywhere near the levels necessary to help optimise governors' contributions to driving up standards.
The three key roles of governors remain to provide a strategic view, to act as a critical friend and to ensure accountability. The day-to-day pressures are such that the urgent can too often drive out the important. It is easy to forget that one's original intention was to drain the swamp when one is up to one's ears in alligators. Many of the extra pressures on governors that I have described developed in the years following the Education Reform Act 1988, but the past 20 months have posed additional challenges for school governing bodies through the major new duties placed on them.
The Labour Government brought into force certain provisions of the previous Government's Education Act 1997. The new duties now placed on governing bodies include the requirement to make arrangements to adopt a baseline assessment scheme for pupils entering primary education. Governing bodies must now adopt curriculum tests and public examination schemes with locally defined annual targets. There is a new duty on governing bodies and head teachers to provide careers education in years 9 to 11.
Finally, under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, governing bodies are required to ensure that schools meet limits on the size of infant classes; they must conduct the school with a view to promoting higher standards of educational achievement; they must have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State on determining the capability of members of staff; they must set annual school attendance targets; they must adopt a home-school agreement and take reasonable steps to ensure that the parental declaration relating to such agreements is signed by every parent; and they must ensure that any school lunches comply with regulations prescribing nutritional standards. There is an additional duty, to which I have already referred, relating to health and safety of persons on school premises, or taking part in any school activities elsewhere. A recent tragedy in Leicestershire underlines the importance of that new responsibility. I have outlined only a few of the new duties to illustrate the extra challenges posed for governors.
Notwithstanding the changing priorities and despite the limitations on time and resources, the predominant role of any school governing body should be a strategic one. Governors constantly strive to establish high expectations, challenge complacency and provide a practical policy framework within which the school can thrive. However, the key to that is surely to have every post on the governing body filled, some continuity of local and national policies and properly resourced support from the LEA or school.
Governing is a commitment which, if carried out properly, consumes many hours of precious time. Governors are expected to share responsibility for the safe and efficient running of the school. Many governors are in full-time employment and find it difficult to persuade their employers to allow them time away from work to fulfil their widening duties. Some governors have to use days from their precious annual holidays to do that, which compromises their commitments to their own families.
At local schools, governor visits are often used to monitor and evaluate curricular work in the school—in my area, the literacy hour is under review this year. Monitoring and evaluating the curriculum is an area in which governors often feel out of their depth. It is very time consuming if it is to be done properly.
The pressures on chairs of governors are heavy; at different times, I was chair of a small village primary school and of a large upper school. As chair, one's work load is clearly much larger than that of other governors. One is in daily contact with the head teacher to give support, with frequent meetings to discuss special needs, budgets and new directives, to fill in consultation documents, or to consider admissions. The chair probably tries to summarise all the documents coming into the school to make things easier for the other governors. One must often produce much of the governors' report to


parents and write letters to the local authority when one does not agree with its decisions. One must make and consider suggestions for the school's development plan—the list goes on.
I loved the role of chair of governors: it was one of the most interesting voluntary jobs that I have ever done. However, the calls on time and energy can become wholly unreasonable. We are rapidly reaching the position where future candidates for the chair will come only from the ranks of the retired, the unemployed, or those with some other means.
I remember that Sir Ron Dearing recommended that schools should be allowed to work in peace for at least five years. That would have given governors and teachers time to consolidate and improve the new skills that they had had to acquire during the previous 10 years. No one expects the world to stop for them, however, especially when social and economic change is so rapid. Our new Government, with an ambitious agenda to fulfil, produced even more pressure. I was delighted that our top campaign priority was education and that education is a main focus of our actions in government. Nevertheless, we absolutely must carry governors with us. The voluntary commitment of governors is already heavy and the hours are extensive. Many governors feel that even more delegation is undesirable and that governing bodies have been given enough powers and responsibilities to absorb. More paid staff, either in schools or in LEAs, are required to support the governor's role.
When it was known that I had been successful in securing the debate, I received some feedback from local governors with a substantial number of letters, faxes, phone calls and visits from schools in the county of Leicestershire. We should bear in mind that many of those people have performed that role for a decade and more. They have experienced all the changes made by successive Governments and are not harking back to some illusory golden era of governing. I shall quote briefly from that correspondence. The chair of governors at a small village primary school says:
We are now implementing the various initiatives detailed in the School Standards and Framework Act. I am increasingly concerned that the governor work load is going to become prohibitive. In addition, the increase in governor responsibility and accountability does not seem commensurate with the voluntary nature of serving as a school governor.
I do not think that remuneration for governors—as has been suggested occasionally—is the answer. I do, however, feel that governors are becoming a free substitute for the education authority professionals who are rapidly disappearing as more and more services and administration are devolved into schools.
Aside from the increased role of governors, this devolution of services puts extreme pressure on the staff of small schools.
A second letter states:
It is slightly alarming to note the rapid way in which the role of school governor has changed over the last year—it may be increasingly difficult to find people who are willing to take on this job in the future.
Another letter says:
I have been Chair of a local primary school for the past 18 months. During this time, we as a governing body have seen the amount of our work load increase tremendously. The sheer weight of documentation that comes through from the DfEE and the LEA is such that I do not have time to read it all… I am aware that many of my colleagues find themselves equally beleaguered. We

find ourselves having to concentrate on the everyday issues of running the school rather than focusing on strategic issues and those directly affecting the children within our school.
I became a governor because I cared about my children's education. I now find myself dealing with a whole array of issues which have little or nothing to do with that education.
I have to take responsibility for keeping them warm, safe, fed and partially educated at home. The balance of their education should be provided at school but governors cannot focus on that crucial part because they are too engrossed in the new bureaucracy of governor accountability. Frankly, it is labour on the cheap. Please help".
I pass on to my hon. Friend the Minister that poignant and heartfelt plea.
As a governor in and the Member of Parliament for a constituency containing 50 schools and 12,000 children, I urge the Minister to recognise governors' problems and give them encouragement about the Government's support for them and reassurance about their future role. The weight of work and worry that we are transferring to volunteer governors seems neither sensible nor sustainable. We cannot go on like this.
I am grateful to the Whips for carving out so much time for the Minister to respond to a crucial issue. I look forward to her speech with great interest.

Mr. Bob Russell: I congratulate the hon. Member for North—West Leicestershire (Mr. Taylor) not only on securing the debate, but on getting more than three hours for it.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman also on the many and varied points that he made about the increasing work load faced by our school governors. Over 25 years, I was a governor of different schools in Colchester and, for a time, the chair of a combined board of junior and infant school. Does the Minister think it wise to force schools with a combined governing body to set up separate bodies? As the hon. Member for North—West Leicestershire said, that has made the governor deficit, which exists in many places, even worse. There is a problem in getting sufficient governors to come forward.
I pay tribute to all the governors who have volunteered because, for the reasons that have been mentioned, the job is becoming increasingly difficult. There is more and more delegation, but many of us want some responsibility pulled back to the local education authority. Governors are being swamped with paperwork.
I am concerned about the financial and legal responsibilities faced by governors. In many respects, governing bodies are almost local councils or local firms. They run small businesses that happen to be called schools, but they do not necessarily have professional staff and guidance on tap and must seek it out. I am worried because many experts are now offering their services. Some of their work is paid and some is voluntary. One wonders what they are offering in return. There is a need for more professional staff to be on hand for governing bodies.
The term "labour on the cheap" has been used. I could understand the previous Administration wanting to run schools on the cheap, which is what these developments are about. My work load as a governor was continually extended because the professional staff from county hall and the local education authority were being withdrawn. Some of them set up firms, privatising the administration of our schools.
Will the Government provide the skilled, professional services that hitherto existed and are now increasingly provided by enthusiastic, dedicated people? I acknowledge their enthusiasm and dedication because I was one of them. When I started as a governor, I knew that there were professional staff to support me. I doubt that governors in many schools today have recourse to such staff. Will the Minister explain whether the Government will reverse that trend or proceed with further delegation?

Mr. Bill O'Brien: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (Mr. Taylor) on securing this debate. We sometimes pass over the important debates that should take place in the House, such as the issue of school governors and the voluntary work that they enter into when they accept their post. Whether governors work for a primary or secondary school or one of the new colleges, there is a great deal to be done to support education in local communities.
I am receiving representations from local school governors about the funding of schools. The money that has been allocated by the Government over the past 14 or 18 months is being used to clear the debt that some governors had to continue carrying over because of the lack of support for education by the Tory Government. Schools were driven to dispensing with teachers and reducing services to which children are entitled. All that time, many school governing bodies were running a deficit. The money that has been allocated to education has been used, particularly in my constituency, to clear the backlog of debt.
I am sure that now that some of the debt has been cleared, we shall realise the benefit of that money. However, it will take time to clear up the arrears that school governing bodies had to run up because the Tories let down education in many areas. Governing bodies had to make ends meet and reduce their teaching staff.
School governors are often fund raisers, too. They make an effort outside school hours to raise funds to help with out-of-school activities, which were reduced when the Tory Government cut funding for them. We therefore owe a great deal to school governors for helping with the maintenance of education in our communities. Those issues are over and above the legal responsibilities and commitment of school governors and the burdens placed on them, which were outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire.
In many instances, school governors had to dispose of school playing fields to raise money. I am pleased that the Minister and her colleagues are watching that carefully and that there is now an embargo on the sale of school playing fields, which are very important. I hope that we are going to assist school governors with the development of more out-of-school activities such as sports. There are still many problems to solve, problems which members of school governing bodies want to tackle. They want to ensure that their schools can provide out-of-school activities, such as sport and agricultural activities which some teachers wish to introduce. This takes money and time, but school governing bodies in my constituency are working to that end and credit must be given to them.
I support the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire that we should recognise the dedication of many of our constituents who are

members of school governing bodies and who do a great deal of work to ensure that the best quality education is provided for their communities. I associate myself with his remarks and reiterate his plea to the Minister to accept that there is a call from our communities for school governing bodies to be given a higher profile and greater assistance, through the local education authority in many areas. I hope that the Minister will respond to the points that have been made so that we can highlight through the media our appreciation and recognition of the work of school governing bodies.

The Minister for School Standards (Ms Estelle Morris): I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (Mr. Taylor) on securing this Adjournment debate. He is absolutely right to say that governors are key partners in the education service, and their work should be recognised and applauded. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) in welcoming this debate as an opportunity to do exactly that. I am in no doubt that schools work better when they have effective governing bodies to support them. If we were looking at the elements that made a good school, a good and effective chair of governors and governing body would be on that list.
I also welcome the contribution made by the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Russell). I may have to differ from him on what I believe was his main point. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire that we do not want to go back to the days when governing bodies had no powers and decisions were made by local authorities. The answer to the question that the hon. Member for Colchester put directly to me—whether we would be centralising to local authorities some of the powers latterly given by both Governments to governing bodies—is no. That is perhaps a difference between our two parties.
When we debated the School Standards and Framework Bill in Committee, the Liberals argued strongly that more powers should be given to local authorities. I suspect that the hon. Member for Colchester overstated his case, but the new powers that this Government have given to governing bodies and which were listed by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire—they relate to target setting, behaviour plans and class size plans—are quite properly the domain of governing bodies. Such decisions about individual schools should be made by those most closely affected.
In a debate like this, we need to remind ourselves that governors are important because they provide the essential link between schools and the communities that they serve. They are independent, which is important, and they play a vital part in making sure that the wider local community is represented.
My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire will know that the Government have put at the centre of the education debate a wish, a determination and a commitment to raise educational standards in all schools. Certainly, governors and governing bodies have a crucial role to play in that agenda. The legislation that was passed last year for the first time placed a specific responsibility on governing bodies to conduct schools with a view to promoting high standards of educational achievement. One might have supposed that that was what


they were doing anyway, that that was their raison d' etre and that that must be at the centre of what they were doing. However, the legislation made that explicit for the first time, and governing bodies and those who represent them have welcomed that.
It is important to clarify in the new framework for schools exactly what the roles of governing bodies and local authorities are in raising standards. Although the legislation introduces some changes, the broad responsibility of governors remains largely the same as it was before the passage of that legislation.
I understand what my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire said. I accept that the legislation and many of the initiatives that are central to the Government's wish to raise standards have resulted in a flurry of consultation on specific aspects of that legislation, especially in relation to new regulations that will need to take effect before 1 September. I take this opportunity to assure governing bodies that we understand the burden that extra bureaucracy and consultation can place on them and that we want to minimise that burden so far as we are able.

Mr. Bob Russell: Is the Minister saying that governors already have burdens, and are they going to have extra burdens? What sort of central support do they get now, and will they get additional professional support in future?

Ms Morris: I shall come to the latter point in a few minutes. My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire listed several consultation papers that have been published in the past year. I accept what he said but, in light of the Government's determination to improve standards and put education at the top of their agenda, it would have been strange had we not consulted governing bodies in the determination of that agenda.
The word "burden" has a pejorative ring to it, so I do not want to repeat it. Instead, let me say that there is an acceptance that the new framework and the Government's new initiatives and policies have meant more consultation with governing bodies in the past 18 months than was the case in the previous 18 months. I accept that it has meant an increased work load for governing bodies, but, given the parents' and the nation's wish to do something about the unacceptably low standards of education in some parts of the system, it was an inevitability, and I am happy to justify it. I accept that, having initiated that amount of consultation, it behoves the Government to assist governing bodies to respond to it as efficiently as possible.
Given the consultation that has emanated from recent legislation, I am keen to make sure that the flow of documents to schools from the Department is kept to a minimum. It is important that schools have enough time to respond to the consultation. I am conscious of the fact that, several times in recent months, the Department has issued many documents. Because we wanted to make rapid progress towards higher standards, perhaps there has not always been the amount of time that we would have wished for schools and governing bodies to respond. That is why we are redoubling our efforts to make sure that when consultation papers are sent to schools, governing bodies have at least 10 weeks—excluding school holidays—to respond.
We hope to make further improvements in that regard. For instance—this may be the type of initiative that the hon. Member for Colchester meant—we want to make greater use of sampling. I question whether it is always necessary, when we publish a consultation document, to request and analyse the views of 24,000 governing bodies. One initiative that we have put into effect since we came into government is to consult, on some consultation documents, a sample of schools and a sample of governing bodies.
Some policies are so important that all governing bodies should have the right to respond to the proposals and have their views taken into account by the Government. However, we are trying to develop expertise in sampling. If we can do so, it will no longer be necessary for every governing body to respond fully on every initiative that comes out of the Government before we can assess the response and develop policy further.
A large quantity of paper is generated locally through local authorities' consultation with schools—it does not all come from the Department or from Government bodies. That is why, on 29 July 1998, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment wrote, jointly with the chair of the Local Government Association's education committee, to all chief education officers about the need to reduce the bureaucratic burden on teachers, governing bodies and schools. The local authority education department often acts as a gatekeeper for messages and letters from other council departments to schools. The letter to local education authorities contained a framework covering gatekeeper communications and information requests, and urged local authorities to minimise paperwork.
In the past six months, the Department has run two pilot schemes—one in Kent, which is a large local authority, and one in Derby, which is a much smaller local authority—to discover how local education authorities can identify good practice in dealing with paperwork for governing bodies and others, and how we can spread good practice when identified. Those pilot schemes are taking place this year. We very much hope to learn from them, so that we may ensure that the burden imposed on governing bodies by local authorities is reduced, and so that local authorities may tackle that problem as central Government do.
We have asked local authorities to follow the Department guidelines by providing a simple summary of the issue contained in the document, and by making clear the status of any action that needs to be taken. As a Department, we have been doing that for some time, so in future there should be no need for governing body chairs to summarise documents for the governing body in the way that my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire feelingly described. I acknowledge that problem. The summary of the document now appears clearly on the front of the consultation document, as does a description of the intended audience.
I very much agree with my hon. Friend that the relationship between a governing body—especially its chair—and the head is crucial. If that relationship is not right, it not only creates an extra work load for governors, but interferes with the proper running of the school and the raising of standards for children.
There must be a clear division of responsibility between governing bodies and head teachers. For years, guidance from the Department has consistently emphasised the


strategic role of a governing body and the distinction between governance and management. We want to go further, to clarify that relationship. In the description of some governing bodies that was read to us by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire, it was unclear whether, in the schools that he was describing or quoting, the partners were clear about their responsibilities and acted accordingly. I accept that that relationship needs working at. It needs good will, and it needs to be talked about and clarified. Because of governing bodies' enthusiasm for their work, it is easy for them to impinge on what is properly the role of head teachers.
The School Standards and Framework Act 1998 enables us to make regulations. We set out the terms of reference for governing bodies. We shall use those regulations to set out the distinct roles and responsibilities of governing bodies and head teachers more clearly than ever before.
We do not intend to use those regulations to set out a long list of the responsibilities placed on governing bodies. My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire mentioned those responsibilities. However, it is important to note that, although the law places responsibilities on governing bodies to make sure—those are important words—that statutory responsibilities are met, the law certainly does not require governing bodies to carry out those functions themselves. Governing bodies, heads and schools need to be clear in their minds about where the duty to make sure that the law is kept, and the duty to carry out what is required by law, start and end.
My hon. Friend especially mentioned governing body responsibility for health and safety. Governors' legal responsibility in that regard has not changed. Under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 and associated regulations, employers in schools are responsible for the health, safety and welfare of their employees. I am aware of the tragic incident that my hon. Friend mentioned. I understand the impact that it must have had on those concerned, and the importance that it has in his community. I understand that the matter is now being investigated by the Health and Safety Executive, and that the results of the inquest are still awaited.
I do not accept all my hon. Friend's comments. It was necessary to bring legislation into one document, to meet the responsibilities of governing bodies within the new framework of schools. Much of it carried forward the contents of previous documents meeting a different framework of schools, and reiterated them in one body. We have placed on schools new responsibilities on target setting, for behaviour support plans, and to reduce class sizes to 30 for infant school children. Those are things that we would want the Government to do. They are things that parents would want us to do.
Sometimes a balance must be achieved; I understand the difficulties. On one hand, there is a desire for stability and no increase in work, and on the other, there is an acceptance that things had to change because things were not all right. I know that my hon. Friends the Members for North-West Leicestershire and for Normanton share that acceptance.
I always ask teachers, governing bodies and others to bear in mind the guiding principle that if the extra responsibility is about raising standards for children, we

should all take on that responsibility. If it is a responsibility that stands in the way of raising standards for children, we should object to that responsibility. That is the guideline as to whether the extra responsibility is a burden or whether it is part of the wider standards agenda.
I am aware, as my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire must be aware, that a recent Ofsted inspection of Leicestershire identified LEA governor vacancies on school governing bodies as a particular problem. It may offer my hon. Friend some assurance to know—although I am not pleased about it—that the problem is not unique to Leicestershire. Governing bodies need to have all their places filled to cope with their work. Leaving vacancies is not an acceptable practice as far as LEA nominees are concerned. Schools need complete governing bodies, and I agree with my hon. Friend that in small schools in rural areas, where the governing body is smaller to begin with, vacancies can place an unacceptable burden on the rest of the governing body. I hope that, when local authorities are unable to fill their places, they will be prepared to consider a wider range of individuals, including nominations from governing bodies.
I understand that Leicestershire is now considering what to do in light of the Ofsted inspectors' findings, and I hope that the local authority will look at the issue more flexibly than it may have done in the past. My hon. Friend may be interested to know the results of some research that surprised me—research recently commissioned by the Department, and carried out by the university of London institute of education, into improving the effectiveness of school governing bodies. Some of the project's findings are relevant to questions about work load and recruitment. For example, less than 10 per cent. of governors in the sample said that their work load was not reasonable. Interestingly, in a similar sample, more than 50 per cent. of head teachers thought that the work load on their governors was unreasonable. There is a mismatch in those results; it is almost as though head teachers were protecting governors. Head teachers showed much more concern about governing bodies' work loads than governors themselves. We must think hard about what that difference in perception means.
The same research confirms data obtained from local authorities following the 1996 governor recruitment campaign: most schools do not experience significant difficulties in recruiting governors. In saying that, I am not minimising the problems for schools that do so. Many such schools are more challenging and in less affluent areas, where parents often do not have the confidence to stand as governors. With that in mind, the Department will be working with LEA governor training co-ordinators to produce information aimed at recruiting new governors to serve on reconstituted governing bodies from September.
The Government have a good story to tell in supporting and training governors. This year's standards fund includes earmarked funding for governor training in the school effectiveness category. That is the first time for several years that governor training has been earmarked. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire will welcome that. Governor training expenditure under the previous Government had declined to about £6 million, but, under our Government, expenditure on training governors across all categories of


the standards fund is estimated to be about £10 million. We have specifically asked that in all schools, there is at least one governor who is trained in target-setting.
We want to ensure that high-quality training is available to all governors. We are concerned not just with making training happen, but with its quality. That is why we are planning to issue guidance on how governor training needs can best be met, based on the best LEA practice. I am aware that not all governors take up the training opportunities available to them. Some misguidedly think that, in taking money to train themselves, they are using part of the school's budget that could be spent on pupils. I know that all hon. Members who have spoken in this debate agree that governing bodies ought to use the money that has been set aside for training. That is in the interests not only of governors, but of schools and pupils.
We are working hard to ensure that departmental publications for governors are more user friendly. There is much work to be done by the Government on that; we always need to keep our eye on the ball and to update matters. A good example of such a publication is "The Governors' Guide to the Law". We have provided every governor with a copy, and we shall be revising it later this year to take account of the School Standards and Framework Act. As mentioned in the Green Paper on the teaching profession, "Meeting the Challenge of Change", we shall also be looking at providing more targeted advice for governors on specific issues such as appraisal, in order to make it easier for governors to identify exactly their responsibilities.
It is interesting that all Members who have spoken in the debate have been school governors. That is why they spoke with passion. The fact that they have contributed to this debate shows not only concern for schools, standards and pupils in their communities, but an understanding of the governing body's role. The House is fortunate to have

many Members who have served as governors. That should further reassure present governors that their role and importance is truly acknowledged and will not be forgotten.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire—and others who have spoken—can take back not only to the governors who have written to him in order that their comments could be part of this debate, but to every school in his constituency, the fact that the Secretary of State and I and other Ministers are deeply indebted to governors for their work. We extend our thanks to them for the time that they put in, the challenges that they meet and the positive role that they play as partners in the education service. They are volunteers; they can choose to do different things with their time. They can choose to do what others do when they are not working or with their families. I think that they choose to continue to be governors because they know that their contribution can make a better school.
I accept on behalf of the Government that, not only because of the contribution that governors make, but because getting their role right is crucial to the standards agenda, we, too, have an obligation to ensure that their work is acknowledged in this House and outside. We shall do all that we can to ensure that governors are able to carry out their important task as efficiently and as unburdened as possible.
I have taken note of the comments made in this debate, and I assure hon. Members that I shall reflect on them. Although I am not pretending that everything is as unbureaucratic as it can possibly be, there is no going back from the important role that governors play in schools, for which I thank them. I thank, too, my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire for allowing the House to pay tribute to governors and to discuss this important issue.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at four minutes to Eight o'clock.